Inside a ‘cover-up’: The top cops, the ‘quasi investigation’ and the officers who stood up

Source: Radio New Zealand

A damning report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority found serious misconduct at the highest levels of police over how they handled accusations of sexual offending by former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming. National Crime Correspondent Sam Sherwood reports.

Inside a scathing 135-page report into how police responded to accusations of sexual offending by former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming lies a quote from one of the country’s most senior adult sexual assault investigators.

The officer, named in the report as Officer D, told the Independent Police Conduct Authority that the handling of the allegations prior to her involvement in the case was “appalling”.

“We have just not followed policy whatsoever and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist… Jevon has tried to get rid of this by making a complaint and … making [Ms Z] the villain, when in actual fact what he perhaps should have done was gone: ‘Can someone look at this and investigate it and get it cleared up? Because I’ve got designs on the future, and I want my integrity intact, so I welcome an investigation. Let’s get it cleared up, get it out of the way’.

“But you know what’s the worst thing – if you make a mistake … the only worse thing that you can do is then cover it up…You can paint all sorts of nice words of this …but to an outsider looking in, and … I mean even me, this looks like a cover-up.”

The woman referred to in the report as Ms Z was charged in May last year with causing harm by posting digital communication in relation to more than 300 emails she allegedly sent to McSkimming’s work email address between December 2023 and April 2024. The emails included abusive and derogatory language directed towards McSkimming and other people.

With the release of the report, RNZ takes a look at how police investigated the woman’s complaints and how in the words of Police Commissioner Richard Chambers she was “ignored and badly let down”.

Operation Herb

It wasn’t until about a month after Ms Z, a former unsworn staffer,was charged that former Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura decided police should explore whether any of the allegations in the emails were legitimate.

Kura spoke with Assistant Commissioner A, who was then the Assistant Commissioner of Investigations. The pair agreed to bring in Officer D.

“We involved her because we were concerned that if the allegations or the rantings that she [Ms Z] had put out there were actually true, she couldn’t be pleading guilty to things that came about because she’d actually been a victim of some offences.”

Assistant Commissioner A directed a colleague, officer B to do the first draft of the terms of reference for the investigation.

Officer B told the IPCA both Kura and Assistant Commissioner A urged caution in the way the terms of reference were framed:

“Jevon’s a very senior person in the Police and…if these complaints are made and then what happens is there’s no validity to that complaint, someone’s career is really on the line because someone made a complaint, but there’s no substance. So it was about having the right care”.

Kura told the authority she didn’t approach it as an ordinary sexual assault preliminary investigation because of McSkimming’s rank and the prosecution against Ms Z. She also had concerns about the impact of McSkimming’s career.

“If we overstep here, there’s a risk that [IPCA] will be into me about something else because a person who may have been able to apply for a Commissioner’s role and potentially get it, was denied that opportunity because we didn’t take a measured thoughtful approach to how we would do this. I felt we needed to take stock of what we knew. I felt we were going to have to approach her at some point but needed to be able to demonstrate later that we had taken a measured approach.”

Assistant Commissioner A conceded that the knowledge that McSkimming intended to run for the top job was “a factor in this that was relevant”.

There was also an “awareness” that McSkimming was “financially sound”, and may get lawyers involved if he believed he had lost out on the top job because of the investigation.

Assistant Commissioner A decided the best approach was to do a “stocktake” of what information was already known, before deciding on whether to speak to Ms Z.

Officer D told the IPCA that in her initial conversation with Officer B about looking into the allegations she was given information on the prosecution.

“I was going to be asked to look into…the content of [Ms Z’s] emails and whether or not there was actually anything to them”.

The introduction in the terms of reference for the investigation said a serious allegation “against any politically exposed person has the potential to significantly, and permanently impact an individual’s work and career”.

“It is appropriate to investigate circumstances such as these described below in a cautious manner to ascertain the truth. Accordingly, if there is a valid complaint, that should be dealt with as police would normally deal with a complaint, however to first determine whether a valid complaint exists, this matter should be dealt with in a manner that does not adversely impact the person”.

The terms of reference did not instruct Officer D to speak to Ms Z.

A heading “approach” described Ms Z’s emails as “highly emotive and accusatory”.

The terms of reference also included a number of unconfirmed statements including that it was a “mutually consensual sexual relationship”, that McSkimming ended the relationship because she became “too controlling”, and that Ms Z had not made a complaint to date.

The IPCA said the terms of reference were in “stark contrast” with Police’s adult sexual assault policy and practice.

“[It] had as their foremost consideration the need to protect Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s career, and which did not envisage that the complainant would necessarily even be spoken to.”

Officer V, the Territorial Detective Superintendent, was shown the terms of reference by

Officer D in his capacity as her supervisor.

He told the IPCA his view was that it was clear Ms Z was a potential sexual assault complainant and should have been treated as such.

Conflicts of interest

Officer D was directed by Assistant Commissioner A to report to him, which is unusual for a criminal investigation. Officer D would usually report to a Territorial Detective Superintendent.

Officer D told the IPCA she felt there was a conflict of interest.

“… really got the sense that [Assistant Commissioner A’s] focus was on getting this out of the way so [Deputy Commissioner McSkimming] could apply for the Commissioner’s role without this hanging over his head”.

Kura confirmed she told McSkimming that Officer D had been appointed to investigate the validity of the emails.

The IPCA questioned Kura about the unusual circumstances of keeping a suspect up to date like that.

“Yes, he’s a suspect in the end of it, but actually there’s a lot of stuff on the table here and that’s just the way it occurred. Normally you wouldn’t do that…but this wasn’t a normal set of circumstances”.

Officer V told the IPCA that when Officer D spoke to him in September there were several features of the case that struck him as unusual.

This included that no senior reviewing officer had been assigned to the investigation, and that usually an investigation like the one being conducted would have been resourced with about

four other staff but it was only Officer D.

He also said Officer D should not have had a reporting line directly to Assistant Commissioner A, and the police executive should not have had a role in managing it.

The IPCA agreed with Officer V.

“The unusual structure and reporting lines simply reinforce the fact that the matter was not being

treated as a normal adult sexual assault preliminary investigation.

“It also highlights that the senior officers who were acting as decision-makers held an entrenched view that Deputy Commissioner McSkimming was the victim rather than the offender and were unduly preoccupied with ensuring he was not being unfairly disadvantaged in the forthcoming appointments process for the new Commissioner, for which they knew he would be an applicant.”

Officer D told the IPCA that between 24 June and 26 July she was having trouble making progress, but then “worked out that… it actually was the terms of reference that wasn’t right”.

“I was essentially being asked to get a feel for the veracity of the complaint without actually speaking to the complainant. It just didn’t feel right”.

Officer D met with Kura and Assistant Commissioner A in Wellington on 26 July 2024.

She told them she couldn’t continue without speaking to Ms Z and asked for their permission.

She said the meeting was “strange”, and that when she pointed out the investigation fell outside usual policy for such investigations Assistant Commissioner A asked where in policy it said police had to speak to the complainant.

Officer D contrasted the discussion with usual police practice.

“If we get wind of anything, any kind of complaint, that’s what the police do. We would contact someone and go: ‘Hey what’s going on. Is there something that you want to talk about?’ You know we can’t always be waiting for people to come to us, and you know having sat in that adult sexual assault chair for so long we get lots of complaints that actually come through from other people that go: ‘Look you need to talk to my friend. She was raped by so and so’ or whatever… I know that this is our obligation, and look I don’t know that it’s actually written in black and white anywhere, you know that that’s what we do.”

She said Assistant Commissioner A repeated on a number of occasions that McSkimming had applied for the top job and that if things weren’t sorted quickly he wouldn’t get it.

“I personally think it should be very simple in every police officer’s world. Doesn’t matter who the hell you are. We speak to the person, take a complaint and investigate it. It’s all very simple,” Officer D told the IPCA.

Officer D was given permission to speak to Ms Z. She contacted Ms Z’s lawyer on 28 July 2024, but did not hear back for some time. Officer D sent through some generic advice and resources for sexual assault victims.

She contacted the lawyer again on 20 and 28 August. Ms Z replied on 5 September and said she was taking advice.

Later that month, Ms Z emailed to say police had previously referred her to the IPCA “for any complaint involving a police employee”.

“Please could you clarify whether you can act/provide advice/investigate”.

Officer D replied offering advice on ways to raise complaints.

The call to the IPCA

On 10 July last year Officer D called the IPCA and said she had been assigned to investigate Ms Z’s allegations.

The conversation was followed up by an email from the IPCA to Officer M (the director of integrity and conduct) which mentioned the call between the IPCA’s investigations manager and Officer D, and questioned why the IPCA had not been notified.

Officer M forwarded the email to Deputy Commissioner PLC, a member of the Police executive with responsibility for Police Integrity and Conduct, and said the complaints “have not been progressed through our usual complaint process”.

She said it appeared police had “bypassed our usual complaint processes for quite some time…”

Deputy Commissioner PLC replied two days later. He said he’d spoken to Kura and the situation

didn’t appear to be “as it was relayed”. He said he believed the investigation was into the complainant, who had been charged.

Officer M said she had some “concerns”.

“I can’t see and I acknowledge there may be information I am not privy to, that Police has ever conducted an investigation (following ASA guidelines) into the multiple ongoing complaints, which would usually include a preliminary interview, level 3 interview and referral for crisis support as a minimum.”

‘It’s a risk to you as commissioner’

On 16 September last year, Officer M says she received a call from then Police Commissioner Andrew Coster asking if she knew of any “open investigations” into McSkimming. She believed the call was prompted by McSkimming’s application for Commissioner. She told Coster she would check the NZ Police Professional Conduct database.

She told the IPCA she was saw a “huge organisational risk” that there was something “sitting outside our system”.

“… It didn’t appear that we’d actually dealt with that at all following our usual process, and that I was now aware that the woman had been arrested, pleaded not guilty and I said ‘look, with…my legal experience…any defence lawyer worth their salt is going to say that…this woman has acted the way she has because she’s been trying to raise these concerns for a significant period of time against Police and no one’s listened to her and no one’s followed usual process’ so I said: ‘That’s all going to come out…That’s a matter of risk to the police, it’s a risk to you as Commissioner”.

Following the call she texted Coster and said there were no “open complaints” that were visible in the database.

“The complaints re the woman that you’ve referenced have not been through our usual complaint processes though, and there is no record of the complaints or what has been done re them. I do see this as a risk to the New Zealand Police and Jevon, particularly if this issue arises again down the track.”

She suggested the information around the complaint and what had been done was provided to either her or the Operations Manager of Integrity and Conduct to record in the database.

“I am conscious with a not guilty plea entered on the charges the woman is facing, the complaints could come to light through the court process as part of the defence disclosure request or the woman may complain again in the future, particularly if Jevon is in the media. It would open up criticism if there is nothing recorded in the usual manner following our complaint processes. IPCA are also asking why this has bypassed our usual complaint processes. They were going to contact Tania directly to discuss.”

Coster replied he understood from Kura’s briefing that the “intent” was to record it as Officer M suggested but was “unsure why this has not yet occurred”.

“To be clear, I don’t think there was ever a complaint. The woman never identified herself to us. However, through Jevon’s transparency on it we knew who she was and proactively approached her. However, there was still no complaint forthcoming to back up her various email allegations sent from a variety of email addresses with made-up names. I appreciate your follow up on that”.

Initial investigation concludes

Operation Herb was closed on 24 September by Assistant Commissioner A.

Officer D told the IPCA such files were “never truly closed”, and that police could take action at any time.

The IPCA found the investigation was “closed prematurely”, but were unable to determine where responsibility lay.

It said the fact both Kura and Assistant Commissioner A raised a concern that if McSkimming missed out on the role of Commissioner because of the investigation police could be criticised by the IPCA was “puzzling, to say the least”.

They said Officer D “displayed moral courage” in questioning her superiors.

Operation Jefferson

Concerned about what was happening, Officer M contacted the IPCA. On 8 October she had a meeting with the authority and expressed the nature of her concerns.

On 9 October the Public Service Commission contacted the IPCA and asked if there were any complaints relating to the applicants for Commissioner.

The following day the IPCA Chair emailed Coster asking that police refer any complaints regarding McSkimming to them.

It was then that Ms Z’s complaint was referred by Officer M. That same day Officer M emailed Deputy Commissioner PLC and said she had opened a file on the database. She had also been informed that Ms Z had contacted Officer D and was considering making a complaint.

The IPCA informed police on 14 October they had categorised the matter as Category A, an independent investigation.

Officer M then got a call from Deputy Commissioner PLC who said Coster was not happy about the IPCA’s involvement.

On 18 October the IPCA met with Ms Z. The authority recommended to Officer M that the National Integrity Unit (NIU) conduct an investigation because of the criminal allegations, with IPCA oversight.

On 22 October, Coster wrote to the chair of the IPCA, expressing concerns about the “chain of events leading up to the commencement of this investigation…”

“My primary concern relates to the Authority’s decision to commence an investigation at such a critical point in the Commissioner appointment process, given all of the circumstances of this case.”

The IPCA said it was “abundantly clear” the version of “facts” that Coster set out were based on what McSkimming told him.

Coster wrote he was concerned the IPCA could “inadvertently significantly increase Jevon’s victimisation from this pattern of harassment and do so in a way that will be irreversible in terms of his career”.

“This is against the backdrop of an issue that has been visible for a very long time and was capable of being resolved long ago – indeed Jevon considered that it had been.”

He said a “standard investigative approach and timeline in this situation risks a very unjust outcome”.

The ‘quasi investigation’

Then, on 30 October, two days before the NIU had their first “forensic interview” of Ms Z, Coster called a meeting. At the meeting was Kura, Deputy Commissioner PLC, the Director, Police Legal Services, Officer M and Officer K of the NIU.

“We understand Commissioner Coster talked at length about the issue of natural justice for Deputy Commissioner McSkimming – that he had already been the victim of harm caused by Ms Z’s harassment and, if the matter was not resolved quickly, that harm would be compounded by denying him the opportunity to apply for the Commissioner role,” the IPCA said.

Attendees said Coster’s view was that following the forensic interview the matter “should be fairly simple to resolve”.

Coster then proposed a “special national assessment team” to look into the appropriate investigative pathway in relation to Ms Z’s complaint. He suggested the team consist of himself and Kura.

Coster told the IPCA the discussion “was entirely appropriate”.

“We would have been open to considerable criticism had I blindly proceeded with a standard approach, which would leave officers junior to the officer in question having to take a decision that might place their own careers in jeopardy.”

The director of police legal services said it was not appropriate, given the conflicts of interest, for Coster and Kura to be involved in decisions on criminality.

One staffer made notes which said: “Time is of the essence. A week’s delay isn’t basically acceptable”.

The staffer told the IPCA, “…so at that point there was a lot of pressure to complete a criminal investigation…within a week.”

Another staffer told the IPCA, “…it was quite clear that he was very invested in Jevon becoming the next Commissioner.”

Officer M said she told the director of police legal services after the meeting: “…we can’t and should never be dictated by a suspect’s needs, the fact that he’s applying to be Commissioner is irrelevant in terms of the criminal investigation… we’ve basically been asked to do an adult sexual assault investigation in a week, including interviewing the suspect.”

Officer K said they also left the meeting with concerns.

“I really thought that the idea of rushing through some sort of quasi-investigation was fraught with risk, particularly given the position that, you know, there were sort of two aspects to it, particularly given the position that Jevon McSkimming was applying for and how that might later play out and the Commissioner talked about natural justice for him and my first thought at that point well, if there’s any substance to what [Ms Z] is saying, how about justice for her.”

They said given Coster was a “sharp man”, a former detective and Crown prosecutor they were “gobsmacked at the idea that he wanted to take some sort of shortcut to a resolution”.

There was another meeting on 4 November, after Ms Z’s interview.

According to attendees Kura questioned how long it would take.

“You know, is it like two weeks… how do we keep momentum going here? It’s been eight years for goodness sake.”

Coster denied placing a one-week time limit on the investigation when spoken to by the IPCA.

The IPCA concluded that once a decision was made in October 2024 to launch a proper investigation senior officers, including Coster, “attempted to shape its approach so as to bring it to a rapid and premature conclusion”.

They did not find any “collusion”, rather a “consistent pattern of behaviour driven by a common mindset and perspective”.

This, the IPCA says, was concerns that it could end with “unjustified victimisation of the Deputy Commissioner”.

“The belief appears to be based on the proposition that Police are justified in not undertaking, or in curtailing, an investigation into a sexual assault allegation if it would jeopardise a suspect’s work or promotion prospects – an argument that, in any other context, would be regarded as untenable.”

The IPCA found significant failings in the way in which senior police responded to the complaints.

“The findings in this report graphically demonstrate that the integrity system needs to be strengthened in order to ensure that it operates with transparency, fairness and independence when conduct issues arise at any level in Police.”

In September, Police announced McSkimming would not be charged in relation to the allegations of sexual misconduct.

Assistant Commissioner Mike Johnson said Police had completed its investigation into allegations against a former senior police member.

“The investigation concluded that the evidential test for prosecution had not been met, therefore no charges will be laid.”

Johnson said the investigation and decision not to charge were independently reviewed by a King’s Counsel and peer reviewed by a Crown Law appointed barrister.

“The investigation was thorough and led by a Detective Superintendent. It had independent engagement throughout from the IPCA and a Crown Law appointed barrister.”

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