Neil Sands
A new police watchdog is set to address a “blindingly obvious” conflict of interest, which sees police decide when to prosecute their fellow officers for misconduct, Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA) chairman Judge Kenneth Johnston KC (pictured) says.
The new oversight body, the Office of Inspector-General of Police (IGP), was announced in the wake of the Jevon McSkimming scandal, which involved high-ranking police closing ranks to protect the now-disgraced former deputy commissioner from his ex-lover’s accusations of sex crimes.
Parliament’s Justice Select Committee last week released its annual review of the IPCA, which late last year exposed the McSkimming affair in a bombshell report.
The select committee’s review included testimony from Johnston, who said New Zealand’s current approach to how police officers are prosecuted for misconduct makes it an international outlier.
Johnston said the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States and Eire all ensure prosecution decisions against police are made independently, unlike New Zealand, where police themselves make the determination.
“[It’s] a very enormous concern of mine… we are the stand-out exception,” he told the committee. “The conflict, or the potential conflict, that the public is entitled to be worried about is blindingly obvious.”
Johnston said he had been campaigning for change and he believed the framework being established for the IPG will address his concerns.
“I think that when the new legislation emerges, part of it will be an amendment in that area, which brings a degree of genuine independence, I hope, to the prosecution of police officers, at least for criminal as opposed to summary offences,” he said.
‘Couldn’t understand’ police conclusion
When asked if police investigations into their own were sometimes inadequate or biased, Johnston cited the case of a senior police officer who disciplined his children by hitting them with a belt on their buttocks and upper legs.
Johnston said the IPCA assessment was that the conduct of the policeman – who was the officer in charge at a North Island location – amounted to three counts of assault on a child, but police reached a different conclusion.
“The police investigated. They decided that there was nothing serious enough to warrant prosecution or anything else,” he told the select committee. “We disagreed and I said so publicly…. I said that I couldn’t understand the conclusion they’d reached.”
In a report on the case released last year, Johnston said while police censured the officer for serious misconduct, it was a “grossly inadequate” outcome given his seniority and level of responsibility.
Johnston said he had held discussions with police and the Justice Ministry about the new oversight body, which is scheduled to launch in October 2027, taking over the role of the IPCA but with stronger powers, including the ability to initiate its own investigations.
“The new entity will have an own-motion power – which, frankly, my predecessor and I have been pressing for, for years – and a much wider jurisdiction, comparable to the jurisdiction of the officers dealing with the spy and defence organisations,” he said.
Johnston will not lead the IGP, although he told the committee he was postponing his retirement until next year to help ensure it “hit the ground running”.
Resources squeezed
Until the IGP is operational, the IPCA will continue to examine complaints about police. But Johnston warned its resources were stretched, as the number of complaints received had risen about 25% in recent years without a corresponding increase in funding.
“In my judgment, we have gone just about as far as we possibly can down these roads of efficiency,” he said. “Any further down that path would present a serious risk of not being able to discharge our statutory responsibilities.
“We would be at risk of turning away complaints that really do deserve careful examination… Without at least a modest increase in our budget from 1 July, I think we are already at that cusp, at that risk area.”
He said the IPCA was no longer able to conduct thematic work, one of the most effective ways to drive meaningful change in the police force.
Asked for specific examples, he said the IPCA would like to carry out research into police bias and discrimination, but lacked sufficient resources. It was also unable to apply data analytics to the complaints it receives to identify recurring themes or patterns.
Johnston declined to comment on the government’s move to give police greater intelligence gathering powers, despite the IPCA and Privacy Commissioner finding in a 2022 joint report that police lack a general awareness of their obligations under the Privacy Act.
“You’re inviting me to have a political view about that,” he said in response to a question from Greens MP Tamatha Paul.
0 Comments