DISCLAIMER     

15 March 2000

 Police Minister George Hawkins will investigate police car chase procedures if the Police Complaints Authority raises any concerns about them in its report on the death of a Wanganui woman.

Yesterday United leader Peter Dunne called for a review of the way police car chases are conducted.

Mr Hawkins said he would wait till the Police Complaints Authority reported on the death of Wanganui woman Leisha Bourne last month when a car chased by police ran a red light and crashed into her car. If the authority raised any concerns about the way pursuits were conducted, he would be willing to investigate, Mr Hawkins said.

Mr Dunne said in the past five years 47 car chases involving police resulted in death or serious injury, including 10 deaths. While there would always be an element of risk in car chases, 10 needless deaths was far too high a price.

"New Zealand is not the Wild West and we do not want to encourage the American trash cop-drama approach to policing that a cavalier and reckless approach to car chases and safety leads to," Mr Dunne said. He said he had no problem with police chasing crime suspects where there was a chance a serious offender would escape and pose a threat to society but a sense of proportion was needed. "A high-speed chase threatening life and public safety is hardly justified for comparatively minor offences like failing to stop, or shooting a red light," he said.

There were simply too many accidents and deaths, and a rethink of the way police chases were conducted was needed to minimise risk to lives.

In 1994, at the Police Complaints Authority's urging, a committee was set up to examine police pursuits after 14 people were killed as a result of police chases between 1992 and 1995.

In April 1997 new police instructions on pursuits were issued, shifting responsibility for conduct of pursuits from the station-based controlling officers to the driver of the police car. The new instruction required the police driver constantly to re-assess whether continued pursuit was justified, and that they abandon the chase if it posed serious risk to the public outweighing the need to apprehend the suspect.

The new rules had changed police attitudes and made chases safer, the authority's 1997 report concluded.

However, since then police pursuits have led to a number of deaths.

The Police Association has come out strongly in support of proposed law changes to protect frontline officers who kill or injure people while lawfully carrying out their job.

Briefing papers from the police department to its minister, George Hawkins, call for protecting the identity of officers and limiting private prosecutions against the police.

The move comes during the private prosecution of Keith Abbot who shot dead Stephen Wallace in Waitara 2-years ago.

The association's president Greg O'Connor says that, after being publicly identified, Constable Abbot was forced to move with his family for their protection. He says that should never have happened.

Greg O'Connor says changes are especially important in New Zealand because police often work in small communities and do not have the anonymity found in big cities overseas.

Greg O'Connor

 Greg O'Connor, policeman, took the worst thumping of his career trying to break up a family fight. He was unable to hit back because he was clutching a child.

Now president of the police union, he says a scene in the film Once Were Warriors where blood gushes from Beth's split lip shows a domestic injury typical of many he has seen during 24 years in the force.

During that time, he has also seen many changes in the way officers tackle "domestics."

These tactics are now being scrutinised in the light of the fatal stabbing of a New Lynn woman who was meant to be under the protection of police.

A senior officer who knows the facts of the New Lynn case says the constables were let down by lack of experience.

The officer, who will not be named, says many of his colleagues hate dealing with domestic and custodial stoushes because they can be "messy."

Ninety-nine per cent of the time they are "just another domestic," he says, but "you can't afford to be complacent."

Mr O'Connor disputes that complacency has crept into the force.

"In the old days, maybe it was just a domestic. There seemed to be no point making an arrest because the wife would pay for it anyway, and she usually wouldn't give evidence.

"But since the 1980s, we have started treating these incidents as a crime scene. If the wife is dripping blood, then that's evidence of an assault that will be used in court."

Yet this assurance fails to explain Saturday's stabbing, when Chinese woman Jian Huang was killed at her home after going to the trouble to fetch police and drive with them to the scene, albeit in different cars.

Neither does it explain how police failed to respond to three desperate 111 calls from Auckland woman Ana Lavea last September while she was being attacked with a knife by her former boyfriend.

Mr O'Connor says officers acted in "almost textbook" fashion in the leadup to the Huang stabbing.

So what do the textbooks say?

The Herald has obtained a complex 29-step flowchart from police national headquarters showing guidelines for dealing with family violence. The chart says officers should have the victim repeat his or her complaint in front of the offender.

There is no mention of steps that could have prevented the Huang killing, such as whether police should stick close to a potential victim at the scene.

However, the police family violence policy of 1996 states that protecting victims is one of three key principles in dealing with family violence. The others are forcing offenders to be accountable and ensuring that all agencies and groups have "consistent" ways of dealing with the problem.

In practice, police say they aim to calm everyone down, clear immediate threats and look for evidence of a crime. If evidence is found, further action is taken.

Some police say their standard ploy is to separate males from one another at potential flashpoints.

Mrs Huang drove to the death scene in her own car, while her boyfriend travelled in the police car.

Two officers told the Herald yesterday that police must therefore have expected violence at the scene, and wanted to keep the boyfriend away from the woman's estranged husband.

Family violence statistics make grim reading. Figures for 1998 show 10,000 children and 6000 women spent time in refuges. Women averaged seven visits before leaving their partners. A Coopers and Lybrand study last year found that family violence costs society $1.2 billion a year.

Another study, of 166 family violence cases, found that more than 45 per cent of police callouts were repeat visits - in some cases the fifth or more to the same household. One-third of the men police met during these visits had protection orders against them.

More legal powers, some controversial, are being proposed to help the victims of domestic bashings.

This year the Law Commission will ponder whether the so-called battered women's syndrome should carry more weight in court, meaning victims who kill their abusive partners could spend less time in jail.

Apart from arresting spouse-bashers, police also refer victims to agencies such as Women's Refuge.

All 56 refuges send data each month to their national headquarters in Wellington.

According to the headquarters, Maori and Pacific Island women often complain that police fail to respond when they report that a protection order has been breached.

The women start to feel responsible for their beatings.

Refuge chief executive Merepeka Raukawa-Tait praises police for some improvements in dealing with family disputes, but believes they still have a long way to go.

"It's unfortunate that police have discretionary powers, because their attitudes vary from area to area. Some officers have a very, very warped view on what domestic violence is.

"Most importantly, all women must be given the same consideration irrespective of their race - in other words, stop the racism."

Protection orders fall under the Domestic Violence Act 1995, and are meant to shield victims from abusive partners or family members.

Mrs Raukawa-Tait says police are often lax in enforcing the orders, and too few arrests are made.

"There are areas in New Zealand where the police are dragging the chain. Auckland is one such area."

The refuges want to help train police.

They say they have worked closely with the force on training schemes in the past 18 months, and want to be more involved with the Police College in Porirua.

Despite criticism and the occasional blunder, police can point to an official complaints body to back their claim that they generally deal well with family violence.

The deputy Police Complaints Authority, Judge Ian Borrin, says he is probing just a "handful" of domestic incidents.

He is unable to give a firm figure, partly because the definition of domestic violence is somewhat blurred.

The Police Association's Mr O'Connor agrees that finding a definition is tricky. He disputes whether the Huang stabbing counts as domestic, because the man charged with her murder lived at a different address.

He firmly believes the constables acted correctly.

"The implications in the Herald are slightly exaggerated," he says. "Any inquiry will find they are not true."

03.04.2001

New Zealand police have spent more than $24 million investigating 9090 complaints about the behaviour and activities of its officers in the past five years.

More than 40 police officers have been suspended or forced to stand down from duty in the past year while they were investigated for alleged offences against police regulations.

The statistics were revealed today by Act MP Rodney Hide, who received the information from Police Minister George Hawkins in response to written parliamentary questions.

Since January 1 last year (2001), 44 police officers have been stood down or suspended for a total period of 5574 days.

Using a formula assuming that most people work about 220 days a year, Mr Hide said the days off work averaged out to about six months per officer.

The figures also show that a total of 334,617 hours, about 5 per cent of total productivity, were spent investigating complaints against police.

Mr Hide said he believed police officers were being stood down unnecessarily, which was a waste of taxpayer money and valuable resources.

Mr Hide gave the example of former senior police officer Brett Marsh, who last week was convicted in the Auckland District Court of drink driving.

The 47-year-old, who held the rank of superintendent, stood down from work after the incident on December 21 and has now quit the force.

"He has suffered terribly. But he did not need to be stood down for all those months. They could have found work for him in the office. He was a very senior police officer," said Mr Hide.

On the flip side, Mr Hide said "dopey" employment laws meant officers who had committed serious offences were paid until they were convicted, which could take some time.

"There's no sense of proportion or judg ment between what the impact on the public is versus the cost of the resource," said Mr Hide. "I'd like an assurance that we do have proper processes in place that take account of the cost to the taxpayer and the extreme lack of policing New Zealand has on the streets."

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said he believed each complaint involving a police officer should be judged on its merits.

"Often there is this allegation that police look after their own. But nothing could be further from the truth. The police just bend over backwards to be seen to be harsh on their own," said Mr O'Connor. "We would say there is room for more managing of the problem, instead of just automatically using the criminal justice system or disciplinary system."

Mr O'Connor said that as soon as there was any hint of an allegation, the officer was almost invariably stood down.

Police officers spend a significant amount of time off work waiting for an investigation or court case to be concluded.

But in some circumstances, they could have been put on other duties instead of being stood down, said Mr O'Connor.

In many cases officers were eventually acquitted but because of their time off work, they came back "different people."

"By the time they get back, many of them never really get back into policing. So it's a double waste," said Mr O'Connor.

"Nobody is in the business of keeping people in the police who shouldn't be here. But there is a fine line."

Mr O'Connor said police sometimes went overboard responding to complaints about officers.

An example of a commonsense approach in terms of judging the merit of an individual case, he said, was the action taken by Prime Minister Helen Clark over former ACC Minister Ruth Dyson, who was convicted of drink-driving.

Ms Dyson handed back her ministerial warrant but has continued work as an MP.

She is expected to be given her job back this year.