Bent Cops

 

THE REAL WANGANUI/NZ POLICE

 

Perverting the course of justice #8

Serious Breaches of the Police Code of Conduct:

• Knowingly falsifying a document or Police record(s) or knowingly making a false declaration or statement, including an incorrect record of attendeance or false explanation of an absence.
• Use of excessive force
• Assault of a surrendering offender.

1

After I saw a cop car go past our place on its way up the valley towards where the reckless shooters had gone so I turned on my trusty cop surveillance radio and this is what I recorded.

Male voice…10.3…(cop speak for free for another job)..Ahh…We’ll give you the result when we get a bit closer to town.

Female voice…Roger.

A little later…Female voice…Go ahead…(For some unknown reason I didn’t hear the call in.)

Male voice…Ahh…K3…(Code for no offence disclosed.) No harm…Ahhmm…One of them’s the farm manager like you said (O’Keefe) and the other ones a doctor at the hospital. (House surgeon Rob Shaw.) Forward the 101 (above) to me, I’ll fill it out and complete it. (By that he meant, leave the falsifying to me.)

Female voice…Roger.

You will notice on the above document (the 101) the words “ULTIMATE RESULT” and below them the words “No persons located”.

2

This is what Guido Croes, my neighbour who rang the police prior to me that night, said to me next morning. (Note top of Record of Telephone Call – the 101.)

“Yea I was pissed off with that c***, (he was referring to the gunman O’Keefe) He never shoots the road, and why shoot under my f***en house.” Guido went on, “I said, you f***en ignorant c***.” (Guido had gone to his road gateway and bailed up O’Keefe when he returned up the valley still banging away.) “You don’t need to shoot under someone’s house.” Then to me, “I rang the cops and said, are you allowed to do it?” (fire a gun from a vehicle on a public road at night onto and across farmland towards people’s houses) and they said, “No”. Guido went on, “If you shoot the willows here, my paddocks here are above the willow trees, and if one of my weaners gets plugged I’m down four or five hundred dollars.” “Mikes a real ignorant c***, and he’s supposed to be a Rural Neighbourhood Watch Warden as well.”

That so aptly called “ignorant c***”, a person who together with Speed and the James Gang allowed Britton free access to the farmland around our boundaries, even when they were asked not to by Sandra. They willingly aided and abetted Britton in his criminal campaign against us and they are the sort of people the police support and lie for.

I rang the police that evening because O’Keefe had fired shots into a large pine tree about 50 meters from our house and well within our boundary fence.

On the bottom of the 101 is written. “As discussed could you have O’Keefe seen at 470 Makirikiri road and warned.” That was written by Senior Sergeant Bob Burns. I went to see him the day after O’Keefe did his thing and I asked Burns what he was going to do about it. He made a phone call and afterward he said the police could do nothing because the police that attended the scene of the incident failed to locate anyone. The words below ‘No persons located’ were added to that document (1) after I had spoken Burns. Did Burns know that he was repeating the lie?

Constable John Grace was sent to “warn” O’Keefe. Not long after (days) I saw Grace walking out of Speed’s (O’Keefe’s boss) gully with a deer on his back. It must have been a stern warning all right. O’Keefe commits several firearm’s offences and all that happens is that Grace gets a new hunting possie. This matter proves that police documents cannot be trusted to be accurate, ever.

And the corruption goes all the way to the chiefs. That’s why the indians are so blatant in their lies.

3

Mears reckons that falsifying a Police document to defeat the course of justice is a “minor” matter.

One (Friday) afternoon cops Garry Smith, Lyndsay Edwards, Kennedy (pictured) and some other cop came to our home to look for guns. They found a legal slug gun but while there I asked Kennedy if he had spoken to O’Keefe on the night of the aforementioned shooting spree and he confirmed that he had. He’d forgotten he wasn’t to confirm that. A liar with a bad memory. Just to the left of Kennedy’s head is the pine tree from where Britton fired at least 4 of his shots in the direction of our house. (7 Shots Fired)

___________________________________________

_________________

6 Responses to “19 Falsified Document”

1.       THIS IS HOW IT STARTS.

19 December 2005

By LANE NICHOLS

Police have waived a Waikanae man’s $150 fine after he claimed a police officer altered an infringement notice with correction fluid after a roadside botch-up.

They say it was a simple error by a junior constable.

Roger Greenfield said he was driving to work at Wellington Hospital on October 19 when he was pulled over on Cable St for driving through an orange light. The officer took his details and an infringement notice arrived in the mail a few days later.

Mr Greenfield was surprised to read the incident had taken place on Wakefield St – a one-way road in the opposite direction. He wrote to the Police Infringement Bureau asking for the ticket to be cancelled because it was “not factual”.

But police said his recollection of the incident differed from the officer’s evidence and the ticket would stand.

When he again protested – this time under oath before a justice of the peace – they sent him the officer’s duplicate ticket. It had been corrected and now said the offence happened on Cable St, Mr Greenfield said.

The police then requested a copy of his original ticket so they could investigate. They informed him last week it had been waived because of an error.

“I wasn’t in Wakefield St, so you can’t give someone a ticket for being somewhere they weren’t. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He deserves to lose his job.”

Mr Greenfield said the incident had made him question the credibility of the ticketing system.

Sergeant Simon Paterson, of the road policing group, said a young constable unfortunately put the wrong street name on the ticket. He amended a duplicate copy when he realised his mistake, but failed to follow procedure by notifying Mr Greenfield of the change.

Tickets were not legal documents and were sometimes amended by officers, but police had decided to waive the fine because of the procedural error.

“The officer’s got confused. He’s realised he’s got the street wrong so he’s changed the location on the duplicate copy.

“Mr Greenfield probably thinks there’s been some big cover-up, but that’s simply not the case. We see it as a training issue.”

Jack

---

2.       I don’t have a ‘learned opinion’ Jack, but really I think all this is a shit storm in a tea cup…these forms are hardly statutory declarations are they? There is hardly a huge cover-up.

scud

---

3.       By itself it doesn’t seem much scud but if its ok to prosecute Kellick (below) why not O’Keefe and his Doctor mate. What they did was way worse than Kellick’s trifling EMPTY shell “crime”.

They may not be sworn documents but they are used as evidence in Court when required. If they are not a true accounts of incidents and they are proffered as additional “proof ” then it would amount to perverting the course of justice. Kennedy and or Sloss perverted/defeated the course of justice by signing a report they knew to be false.

Jack

————————————————————

SO WHAT’S CHANGED?

Two-year search for ‘ghost crimes’ truth

By Eugene Bingham

Sunday Sep 28, 2014

Police claim misunderstanding behind failure to reveal altered burglary statistics

The police officers include John Tims, Peter Marshall and Mike Bush.

It arrived in March 2012 and came with an apology.

An anonymous letter in faded ink, the last line read: “Sorry the printer ran out of ink and I had closed the document without saving before realising the print was not good so hope you are able to read it. Obvious reasons why the doc is not saved.”

The allegation at the top explained why the writer had been so careful: “Investigate Police – Fraudulent Crime Statistics From Counties Manukau South”.

The next two pages contained allegations, in part about how crime statistics had been altered in one area of the Counties Manukau police district. “Burglary codes were changed to theft or any other minor offence to allow the area to achieve the best crime reduction stats for the district,” the letter read.

“How would anyone know what the real facts are when the figures are falsified, this is fraud and the staff changing codes should be held accountable.”

The whistle-blower’s cautious approach was because these were explosive allegations.

Accurate crime statistics are a vital platform on which many decisions are made — about policing methods, policy and funding. The allegation that they were being manipulated was serious indeed.

The handling of these allegations over the next two years is an insight into police administration, the oversight of the force, and accountability.

Anonymous claims are always difficult to deal with, but there was enough detail in the letter to convince me this was worth investigating. On March 30, 2012, I sent an Official Information Act request asking Counties Manukau district commander Superintendent John Tims for documents relating to any allegations about the falsifying of crime stats.

Almost two weeks later, Tims asked me to meet “to clarify the scope of the request”. He was friendly and helpful when we met on April 16, acknowledging that they were serious allegations and promising to keep me informed of investigations which were under way. And so I waited.

Mike Bush had been district commander during part of the period when it was alleged the statistics had been fudged.

So, what investigations were under way? And how widespread were the allegations? It transpired others knew about the allegations around the same time, including the local MP and then-Minister of Justice, Judith Collins.

Three anonymous letters were also sent to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, though it simply referred them to the Commissioner of Police, Peter Marshall. Marshall’s deputy at the time was Mike Bush, who had been district commander during part of the period when it was alleged the statistics had been fudged.

Bush was Counties Manukau district commander from 2008 until March 2011, but Tims has said responsibility for how crime was recorded did not lie with Bush.

The anonymous letter of March 2012 said an inquiry had already been carried out and police implicated had moved on.

The inspector in charge of the Counties Manukau south area had moved to the district headquarters, one senior sergeant had moved to Wellington, and another had resigned.

The timing set out in the letter clashes with the timeline later set out by police. According to Tims, the review began in early April, after the TV3 OIA request arrived. Inspector Keith Brady, from the district’s professional standards office, carried out the review and filed his report on May 25, 2012.

A summary of his report says Brady found the Counties Manukau South area had a pattern of making burglaries disappear from the statistics — about 700 of them. Between July 2009 and July 2012 about 15-30 per cent of offences that started as burglaries were “recoded”.

In other words, burglaries became a range of other, lesser, crimes. Sometimes, they were changed simply to “incidents”.

Brady’s report triggered an employment inquiry, ordered by Assistant Commissioner Allan Boreham.

The employment investigation took six months, finishing on December 6, 2012. The outcome? Tims wouldn’t say, telling 3rd Degree it was confidential.

Inspector Keith Brady found the Counties Manukau South area had a pattern of making burglaries disappear from the statistics.

To recap, the Brady review was completed in May 2012 and the employment investigation was finished seven months later.

How was the OIA request, filed by 3rd Degree in March 2012, being handled by Tims and the police?

There were emails between myself and his communications adviser about the investigation throughout 2012 but it wasn’t until this year that things started happening.

On April 8 this year, I emailed Tims’ communications adviser saying: “I just wondered if the results of this investigation we discussed in 2012 [have] been resolved.” A flurry of emails followed, and Tims and others — including Brady — promised I would get a reply soon.

In June, Tims said the reply was awaiting “executive review”.

And then, on July 14, the Herald on Sunday broke the story, laying out how police had altered statistics.

Tims later confirmed the newspaper had received the information he had promised me — but blamed a leak. “I appreciate you will be somewhat frustrated by today’s story,” he said in an email.

“I should explain that the Herald on Sunday story has arisen because they have obtained a copy of a summary report. I stress they have not obtained this report from police through any official channel.”

He was right: it was frustrating. But such is life. The story was out there and that was what was important. What emerged next was simply extraordinary.

In June last year, Brady had written a “job sheet”, basically a memo that goes on a police file, describing a meeting which had taken place with Tims to discuss 3rd Degree’s OIA request.

After a tip-off, the Herald on Sunday requested the Brady “job sheet” under urgency last week. Without requesting this document, the information is likely to have remained hidden, and certainly would not have been released voluntarily by police.

It read: “Superintendent Tims advised that he had discussed the … request from [Bingham] with Deputy Commissioner Bush and Assistant Commissioner Boreham.

“He had been advised to let the request sit and when and if [Bingham] followed up with a request the matter would be addressed then.

“The direction to me was not to respond to the Official Information Act request and file the file as it is.”

The implication in the job sheet is quite clear to me: I believe Tims, Boreham and Bush — now Commissioner — had decided to bury 3rd Degree’s request.

This job sheet — by an inspector, no less — suggests a move to hide information which went to the top of the police.

Nonetheless, the job sheet lay dormant on the police file for more than a year. Nothing happened until it arrived on the desk of Deputy Commissioner Viv Rickard just before the Herald on Sunday story. Rickard set about establishing the truth.

Bush was firm, telling Rickard: “I confirm that I did not give any direction on this matter whatsoever to Superintendent Tims or Assistant Commissioner Boreham in any respect, for obvious reasons ie any perception of conflict of interest. I did ask to be kept briefed on this matter.”

Boreham was just as adamant he’d given no such instruction.

If both men were so definite, how on Earth did an inspector come to the conclusion that there had been an instruction from the top — a conclusion he felt compelled to place on the file?

Tims says it was all a misunderstanding. “It is my belief that Mr Brady misinterpreted a conversation which was focused on the progress of the investigation,” Tims said last week.

“I told Inspector Brady that no further action was required in relation to the Official Information Act request as I had already met with the requester on April 16, 2012 and therefore believed his request had already been complied with by way of a verbal briefing.”

This explanation from Tims accords with what he told Deputy Commissioner Rickard. In an email to Rickard, he said neither Bush nor Boreham had given him any instruction to ignore my OIA request.

He confirmed that he had met me and said: “I told him there was no such report in existence … regarding the falsification of criminal statistics [to the] best of my knowledge. However I did tell him that as a result of the anonymous letter an investigation would be commenced with regard to the contents of the letter.”

He then added: “In closing, the original OIA request made by [Bingham] was impossible to comply with because … there was no such investigation or report when the request was originally made.” Sounds straight forward — except I don’t believe it is because it’s not what he and his staff were telling me, and what has emerged.

All the way through this process, I thought I was being dealt with in good faith. But knowing what I know now I believe there was a concerted effort to keep me from getting hold of documents revealing the altering of statistics.

The clear impression from what Tims has said to Rickard is that he believed my request had finished with our meeting in April 2012.

But that contradicts what his communications manager told me in October 2012 when I asked for “any update with regards to this request, which we met about in April”.

The response was: “In regards to the review, it’s still underway. [Superintendent] Tims estimates another six weeks till it’s completed. As promised once the investigation is complete we will invite you to discuss the findings.”

Let’s be clear: far from having left me with the impression that my inquiries had been dealt with, Tims was promising to get back to me. Remember, he never did — things only started happening when I went back to him more than a year later.

As to his assertion it had been impossible to respond to my request because the report did not exist, I’m not convinced either.

Sure, the Brady report didn’t exist at the time of the original request — though I was supposedly going to be told about the outcome.

But I hadn’t asked for the Brady report — I’d asked for “any reports, memorandums or emails pertaining to any internal investigation of allegations about the alleged falsifying of crime statistics” within the Counties Manukau District.

And it turns out allegations over burglary statistics dated back to at least November 2009. An email about concerns in Manurewa was sent to a number of police.

The email had been forwarded to Bush, district commander at the time, with a note that it was an update for him on the “recoding situation at Manurewa”. Police this week said it was possible this was a reference to a verbal briefing.

Tims told the Herald this week that regular checks in 2009 had revealed “atypical patterns” in Manurewa, but further inquiries found “reasonable explanations”.

Emails, regular checks and inquiries — all things covered by my 2012 OIA, you’d think — and yet Tims says there was nothing he could release. As recently as this month, Brady said it was his understanding Tims had spoken to Bush and Boreham about whether to respond to my OIA request; all three men say Brady’s understanding is wrong.

So who, then, was behind the decision that I would not be given the information once the report was complete? Tims takes responsibility: “I told Inspector Brady that he did not have to do anything on the OIA request.” He maintains it was a misunderstanding.

A superintendent has admitted telling an inspector he did not need to respond further to a request for information about an issue of public interest in the district he oversees.

Does all this matter? You could say I should have chased up the request earlier. I wish I had. But when a district commander “promises” to get back to you, the last thing you expect is that he tells a staff member there’s no need to respond. I’m left wondering about police attitude to freedom of information and accountability.

Perhaps it’s best to leave the last word to the anonymous letter-writer: “Please investigate and report on all the misdoings in the hierarchy of police management practices. It needs to be exposed that they are not squeaky clean and … meanwhile the rank and file man on the street doing the hard yards are paying the price.”

2009-2012

• 700 “ghost crime” burglaries in the Counties Manukau south area are recoded to less serious offences.

2012

• Anonymous complaint sent to the Independent Police Conduct Authority and to TV3 alleging corruption in the Counties Manukau south area. Producer Eugene Bingham requests details under the Official Information Act. Declined as the investigation is ongoing. Staff disciplined. Justice Minister Judith Collins advised.

June 2013

• Inspector Keith Brady is told by superintendent John Tims to let Bingham’s request sit.
• He registers this in a job sheet, which sits unquestioned for more than a year.

April 2014

• Bingham requests the information again under the Official Information Act.

July 2014

• The Herald on Sunday breaks the ghost crime story.

September 2014

• Source reveals the existence of the incriminating Brady job sheet.
• Job sheet released to the Herald on Sunday.

– Herald on Sunday

SO WHAT’S CHANGED? NOT A FUCKING THING!

---