Police Association welcomes IPCA child abuse report
The Police Association welcomed the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s report into backlogs in the investigation of child abuse files.
“This is an area that has been of concern to members working in the child abuse area for some time.
The Police Association drew attention to the problem in 2006 and we welcome the IPCA’s focus on it,” Police Association Vice-President Stuart Mills said.
A Police News investigation published in the September 2006 issue headed New Zealand’s “Dark Secret” (opposite) highlighted the problem and the concerns overstretched investigators had about it.
In the Wairarapa, there was a backlog of over 100 child abuse cases.
Two years later, Police launched Operation Hope and it quickly became a nationwide inquiry.
Police have now apologised for not properly investigating child abuse cases.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad said that Police had “let these people down”.
Duty of care
Independent Police Conduct Authority Chair Justice Lowell Goddard said Police may have failed in their duty of care but Commissioner Broad has rejected this assertion.
Justice
Goddard said Police needed to focus on having dedicated child abuse teams.
Mr Mills said: “Clearly sufficient resources were not allocated to child abuse investigations in the past.
There was pressure on to get results in volume crime areas like burglaries and theft ex-car.
Those were strategic targets and performance was measured against the targets. Resources tended to follow.
This meant that in a few areas - but by no means across the board - CIB staff were left stretched too thin across other types of crime including child abuse.”
Difficult and complex work
“We believe this was largely because, historically, some highlevel decision-makers didn’t fully appreciate what’s required to do ‘business as usual’ policing, like child abuse investigations, properly. Child abuse investigations are difficult, complex and time consuming,” Mr Mills said.
“Let’s not forget also that it was child abuse investigators themselves who brought this issue to light, because of their concern that they were not getting the support they needed to deliver the service they wanted to deliver.
It has taken a lot of courage to do that, knowing it would invite an enormous amount of scrutiny and potentially criticism, and that speaks volumes for their commitment to the job and concern for the victims of this sort of crime.”
Mr Mills said he believed that the NZ Police are committed to addressing the problems originally identified by the Police Association investigation and by the subsequent IPCA report.
