Centre: Dunedin’s top detective, Chief Inspector Peter Robinson, with Jim Doyle, faces media questions outside the Bain funeral in 1994. TVNZ/EYEWITNESS
been done. A woman continues to languish in jail for crimes she probably did not commit, whilst allegations of police corruption far exceeding the Louise Nicholas case go uninvestigated. Perhaps a clue as to how corrupt the New Zealand Police are can be found in our interview with former Detective Sergeant Tom Lewis. “Just as an aside to show you how the police work, when I was going around NZ doing the book tour [in 1998], I ended up in Christchurch in a little bar in Merivale, and [Superintendent Paul] Fitzharris who was then the head of the South Island police district asked me to join him at his table. I said no thanks, so then he came over to me and said, ‘Look, I’ll just give you a bit of information. You are not going to have your book reprinted, you will not get any more publicity after this week on your book. It’s virtually sold out now and that’s going to be the end of it. And there will not be a reprint, even though it has sold. You can believe me or not believe me, but that’s what’s going to happen.’ “And that’s exactly what did happen. My book editor at the publishing company resigned in disgust over it. And the funny thing is many of the copies of my book were actually bought by the police department!” For a book that sold a bestselling 10,000 copies, there are remarkably few copies of Cover-ups & Cop-outs in public circulation. It was never reprinted.
IN SUMMARY:
Investigate has been shown the names and specific allegations about a large number of current and former police officers alleged to have been involved in multiple rapes, drug deals, extortion,
perversion of the course of justice, sexual misconduct, abuse of power, bringing the police into disrepute, abduction and kidnapping, fraud and a range of other crimes. Multiple police districts and National Headquarters are involved. There is far, far more than we have published in this major investigation. Investigate understands that the people who compiled the list will only provide it if a fully independent Royal Commission of Inquiry is established into the performance of the New Zealand Police, with wide terms of reference and full powers to subpoena, compel and take evidence on oath. Our contacts do not believe the police have sufficient integrity to investigate these allegations against senior officers, and no other independent law enforcement agency exists capable of investigating the police. If the matters had been solely historic in nature, we would have chosen not to publish. But we have obtained extensive evidence, not published as part of this report, of alleged serious criminal offending by Dunedin police officers right up to the present moment. Additionally, some of the people involved historically remain highly placed in the police. One final point, in court testimony a former police inspector has confirmed that the police bond is “a brotherhood” that transcends the end of the job and continues “your whole life”. Police officers who testify against their mates are said to have broken “the brotherhood”. Therefore, investigators trying to break through this “brotherhood” will be up against officers who may be prepared to lie on oath to support those accused. Investigate has been told that it is common practice amongst “bent officers” to keep a notebook listing any indiscretions of their colleagues they may become aware of, so that if the need ever arises the colleague can be blackmailed into toeing the INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, June 2007, 39