2 Dash Street

Waimate 7924

South Canterbury

Hon. Judith Collins

Minister Of Police

Freepost Parliament,

Private Bag 18 888,

Parliament Buildings

Wellington 6160

Dear Minister,

It is with some concern that I read of a Police Officer, Detective Inspector Ross Pinkham, first being mentioned adversely by the IPCA for an inadequate investigation into an internal inquiry with regard to police behaviour toward a Mr van Essen.

Then Mr Pinkham has to explain why it has taken four years to investigate a complaint lodged by Mr Christopher Watson alleging Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope had committed perjury in affidavits lodged in the Wellington High Court to obtain interception warrants in the investigation of Mr Watson’s son for the alleged murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds. This inquiry was in many ways a sham as Mr Pinkham never at any stage contacted Mr Watson to see what evidence he had for the allegations instead relied solely on the evidence of police officers involved and GUESS WHAT? Certain vital documents had “been lost” and memories had dimmed over the years Pages were missing out of police note books (I mean surely these note books are police property and should be accounted for and returned to police custody when finished with as in many police services as they are official documents). If Mr Pinkham had taken the time or had the nous to actually contact the complainant (this I understand is the normal procedure when a complaint is laid) he would have sighted the so called “missing documents” as they had been obtained by Mr Watson through the OIA and Ombudsman.

Now Mr Pinkham turns up in the Bain Case back lash have been accused by the missing witness, Mr Dean Cottle of having not passed on information to the Court with regard to Mr Cottles whereabouts..

No, I don’t think I am being paranoid in thinking Mr Pinkham seems to suffer memory lapses in doing inquiries specially if they involve fellow police officers and seems to have trouble remembering the steps in an inquiry like talking to the complainant. My concern is that this officer is a commissioned officer so presumably has a level of intelligence commiserate with that rank yet seems unable to remember to do the little thing that actually bring results.

Now I realise this is an operational matter but I believe that you would be concerned to hear that a senior staff member seems more like a member of the KeyStone Cops than the new Zealand Police and the senior Headquarters Staff appear to treat the level of competence as acceptable and normal. Dunedin Police have had a lot of adverse publicity in recent times over behaviour of a number of members of the service and this featured strongly in the defence of David Bain.

Surely it is time that a full Royal Commission of Inquiry was held into the New Zealand Police in view of the conduct of a number of members who have been charged with some convicted of and a number of credible allegations of serious criminal offending and covering up of serious criminal offending. How much longer must the Bobby on the beat take the heat for the misconduct or alleged misconduct of senior police officers before something is done to make sure the is no corruption in the police and not just say there is none when patently that is incorrect. Police ministers in Australia, Police chiefs in Australia said exactly the same thing. No Corruption and look what inquiries found. Corruption went right to the top even the officers saying there was no corruption are now doing jail time for corruption.

The Government ostrich attitude just does not cut it any more, many many people are very concerned with the low esteem the police are held but until something is done to reassure people that the police as a whole are honest and upright nothing will change. The vast majority of police are honest and do their job honestly but the few rotten apple have caused a terrible rot to set in and unless it is rooted out things will become worse and worse.

Even methods our police are using are out of date and in some case proven to be totally unreliable the most obvious of the to anyone who has looked at the R v Watson case is Noble Cause Corruption and all the insidious damage it does, also in the same investigation the use of montages for identification purposes . The system is banned in many US and Canadian jurisdiction it is so unreliable, less than 20% of positive identifications are correct. The police don’t even follow international best practise standard for the method. It is pathetic, best practice is that the photos look as much like the WITNESS description as possible, but in Watson none, not one of the photos looked like the witness descriptions so the police resorted to trick photography. I don’t call that good sound honest police work, little wonder ALL important witnesses have recanted their evidence the first being Rosslyn McNielly who swore an affidavit the day following seeing the New Years Eve photo of Scott Watson on Mina Cornelia in the official police book Silent Witness by John Coulter and in her words realised the police had “used her” to get a conviction of Scott Watson. In other words Police lied to her when they told her that Scott Watson had had a hair cut and shave. She was not aware the trick photo was taken on January 12. It seems that police lying to witnesses to get a result is quite acceptable as Mr Pinkham in his investigation had no problem with the same lie being stated as true in the warrant application nor did Assistant Commissioner Gavin Jones in his review.

I trust that some of this may make a difference but I have my doubts as no Minister of Police has ever has the intestinal fortitude to seek explanations and I don’t honestly ever see that changing. The police have a delegated role given by the people to enforce the law in exchange the people gave up the right to enforce their own justice. You as Minister of Police, have a delegated role from the people to ensure the police uphold their end of the agreement, At the moment no one is fulfilling that delegated function with anything like diligence.

Sincerely

Lindsay R. Kennard.
“Instead of investigating Police start with the answer and collect evidence to match it." Paul Davison QC