Independent Police Conduct Authority chair Judge Colin Doherty. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
How do we police the police? RNZ investigative journalist Guyon Espiner explains to The Detail why the workings of our police watchdog - the Independent Police Conduct Authority - are so secretive.
When RNZ’s Guyon Espiner started looking into fatal police shootings and how the police investigate themselves, he was staggered to discover the level of secrecy surrounding the police watchdog, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA).
He tells The Detail that the IPCA, a Crown entity with no powers to prosecute, is more secretive than our spy agency.
Espiner explains how the story of Shargin Stephens was the start of his investigation with data journalist Farah Hancock and the RNZ In Depth series Licence to Kill.
In 2016, Stephens was shot dead by the police in Rotorua after he smashed up an empty patrol car with a weed slasher. The IPCA earlier this month overturned its initial finding, after Espiner's story showed discrepancies between the police homicide investigation and the IPCA investigation.
Espiner wanted to find out more about what happens when the police are involved in fatal shootings. He started digging into the workings of the police and the IPCA and matched their accounts.
He says he knew very little about the police watchdog, but he soon discovered one of the usual ways journalists get more details, through the Official Information Act, wasn't an option.
"You think, OK, what can I find out, what are the reports that we could get, what are the communications that we can get hold of? You've got a big problem with the IPCA because it’s not subject to the Official Information Act."
That’s so police officers can tell the IPCA things during their investigations that they wouldn’t tell the police.
"That information that they've told the IPCA can’t be used against them, can’t be used in a court case."
Espiner says he was "lucky" to get hold of 10,000 pages of documents, many of which were police files showing how they conduct homicide inquiries. From those documents and the scant information the IPCA publishes about its findings, Espiner pieced together more about how it works.
"They actually work very closely with the police and there is a problem there obviously too. How independent is it?"
Espiner details the history of the IPCA, from its beginnings as a one-person outfit, and describes it as a "minnow trying to monitor a giant" as he compares its resources to those of the police.
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