Rot Part 2: corrupt top cops destroy trust in NZ Police

Part Two: How the highest level of New Zealand Police protected their own and prosecuted the victim

This is Part Two. I don’t know how many parts it will take, but it continues here. We left off Part One with Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura deciding that an investigation into the allegations about Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming was appropriate after all…

Still no one had talked to Ms Z about the allegations or attempted to get a full report from her. Strangely, the initial terms of reference for Kura’s investigation do refer to the consideration as to “whether there is a need to speak with Ms Z’s parents.” By 2024, Ms Z was in her late 20s. Perhaps this is an admission that she was a particularly vulnerable person, but that would make arresting and charging her more outrageous.

Officer B, who Newsroom has named as Detective Inspector Chris Page, was tasked with drafting terms of reference for the investigation and he later told the IPCA that Commissioner Kura and Assistant Commissioner A, who Newsroom has named as Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham, “urged caution” about how he framed it. He said:

“Jevon’s a very senior person in the Police and…if these complaints are made and then what happens is there’s no validity to that complaint, someone’s career is really on the line because someone made a complaint, but there’s no substance. So it was about having the right care”.

Kura confirmed that concern about McSkimming’s career was paramount throughout and that she worried about further victimising him:

“If we overstep here, there’s a risk that [IPCA] will be into me about something else because a person who may have been able to apply for a Commissioner’s role and potentially get it, was denied that opportunity because we didn’t take a measured thoughtful approach.”

These admissions among other factors caused the IPCA to conclude that this investigation into the allegations was really just a subset of the prosecution against Ms Z and intended to prove her allegations false.

Basham expressed a long list of anxieties around properly investigating McSkimming including that he intended to apply for the Commissioner role. He even claimed that:

…he had heard that in exchanges between Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s and Ms Z’s lawyers, Ms Z had admitted that her allegations were false.

Only McSkimming and Ms Z were privy to the correspondence between their lawyers so Assistant Commissioner Basham likely heard it from McSkimming. However, the IPCA has viewed the correspondence and it “contains no such concession” from Ms Z that the allegations were false.

Detective Inspector Reeves told the IPCA she found all of this “really odd” and was not happy that “she was essentially being asked to get a feel for the veracity of the complaint without actually speaking to the complainant. It just didn’t feel right”.

She met with Deputy Commissioner Kura and Assistant Commissioner Basham and described the meeting as “very strange” as when she told them that the investigation was not following Police policy due to failing to talk to Ms Z, Basham asked “where in policy it says Police have to speak to the complainant.”

Reeves says Basham mentioned repeatedly that McSkimming “had applied to be Commissioner, and if this situation was not resolved, he would not get the job.”

Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon

Although Reeves was one of the few officers in this saga to challenge those thwarting the investigation, she “had a close working relationship with a relative of Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s, who had acted as her mentor”. This clearly did not prevent her from investigating with integrity, but shows the reach McSkimming had with allies all over Police.

The IPCA concluded that procedure was not followed in the investigation:

…it is clear to us that, notwithstanding the fact that the emails (and 105 reports) contained clear allegations of sexual assault, Deputy Commissioner Kura, [Paul Basham] and [Chris Page] all saw the need to approach this investigation differently from any other adult sexual assault preliminary investigation.

They also pointed out that the terms of reference refer to a number of unconfirmed ‘facts’. For example, despite being much repeated, the claim that the relationship between Ms Z and McSkimming was entirely “mutually consensual” has never been confirmed by Ms Z. This is entirely McSkimming’s narrative. Likewise, McSkimming told anyone who would listen that he ended the relationship and she became a “woman scorned”, but Ms Z claims she ended it. The terms also say that Ms Z had not made a complaint about McSkimming, but as we know she had lodged three 105 reports.

Furthermore, the entire ‘Background’ section of the terms of reference was simply copied from the prosecution against Ms Z and referred to McSkimming as the victim!

Reeves’ concerns about the investigation were so great that, in July 2024, she called the IPCA and asserted “if JM [Jevon McSkimming] is investigated, this should be referred to the IPCA through the MOU with Police.” The IPCA followed up with Detective Superintendent Kylie Schaare (the Director of Integrity and Conduct) and Schaare forwarded it on to Chris de Wattignar, Deputy Commissioner of People, Leadership, and Culture (PLC), adding her own additional comments:

“I am not aware that we have ever spoken to the complainant, as we would in the normal course of events of this nature… We do appear to have bypassed our usual complaint processes for quite some time and if there is an investigation of any sort occurring, it hasn’t been discussed with Integrity and Conduct, followed agreed process nor is it noted in our system as would be expected, to enable a notification to IPCA. IPCA would like notification as to what is currently occurring and why this hasn’t come through Integrity and Conduct and why they haven’t been notified….”

However, the response she received ran more interference for McSkimming. De Wattignar replied saying Kura had told him that the situation did not seem to be “as it was relayed,” that the investigation was into Ms Z not McSkimming, and implied there was no need for Integrity and Conduct nor the IPCA to get involved.

In fact, de Wattignar told IPCA that his notes from his conversation with Kura “say that she advised that there appears to be nothing untoward as far as Jevon McSkimming goes but the female is being charged.”

None of this sat right with Schaare who responded:

“I do have some concerns with the clarification that this is only an investigation into the complainant. I can’t see and I acknowledge there may be information I am not privy to, that Police has ever conducted an investigation (following ASA guidelines) into the multiple ongoing complaints, which would usually include a preliminary interview, level 3 interview and referral for crisis support as a minimum. I understand she has now been criminally charged and I see a potential reputational risk should this charge be defended, if a criminal defence lawyer airs and highlights that she has tried multiple times over a lengthy period to make a complaint and Police hasn’t treated her like we would any other victim raising similar concerns, followed our complaints procedures and done a thorough investigation to either corroborate her complaints or exonerate the person she is complaining about…”.

De Wattignar was responsible for the Police Integrity and Conduct team and Schaare reported to him. He should have been the very person to escalate her concerns. He did not. After the fact he has made the excuse that given so many other executives were not concerned he saw no reason to be. The IPCA criticises this:

His failing lies in the fact that he simply relied upon Commissioner Coster’s and Deputy Commissioner Kura’s assurances without further enquiry of his own, despite the continued expressions of concern from Officer M [Schaare].

Schaare even raised concerns directly with Police Commissioner Coster when he called her on 16th September 2024 in relation to McSkimming’s application for the Commissioner role to ask if she “was aware of any open investigations into Deputy Commissioner McSkimming.” He also emailed Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves (Officer D) to enquire how far away the matter was from being closed. Schaare said she would check the system but also took the opportunity to raise matters others had dismissed:

“I was aware very clearly that there was something sitting outside our system and I saw a huge organisational risk with that because it didn’t appear that we’d actually dealt with that at all following our usual process, and that I was now aware that the woman had been arrested, pleaded not guilty and I said ‘look, with…my legal experience…any defence lawyer worth their salt is going to say that…this woman has acted the way she has because she’s been trying to raise these concerns for a significant period of time against Police and no one’s listened to her and no one’s followed usual process’ so I said: ‘That’s all going to come out…That’s a matter of risk to the police, it’s a risk to you as Commissioner”.

Following the conversation she also sent a long text message to Coster:

“…There are no open complaints that are visible to us. The complaints re the woman that you’ve referenced have not been through our usual complaint processes though, and there is no record of the complaints or what has been done re them. I do see this as a risk to the New Zealand Police and Jevon, particularly if this issue arises again down the track. I suggest the information around the complaint and what has been done is provided to either myself or [Operations Manager of Integrity and Conduct] to record in IAPro…I am conscious with a not guilty plea entered on the charges the woman is facing, the complaints could come to light through the court process as part of the defence disclosure request or the woman may complain again in the future, particularly if Jevon is in the media. It would open up criticism if there is nothing recorded in the usual manner following our complaint processes. IPCA are also asking why this has bypassed our usual complaint processes. They were going to contact Tania [Kura] directly to discuss.”

To which Coster replied:

“Thanks, [Kylie Schaare]. I understand from Tania’s briefing that the intent was to record it in IAPro as you describe, but unsure why this has not yet occurred. I can follow up with [Nicola Reeves] in Tania’s absence. To be clear, I don’t think there was ever a complaint. The woman never identified herself to us. However, through Jevon’s transparency on it we knew who she was and proactively approached her. However, there was still no complaint forthcoming to back up her various email allegations sent from a variety of email addresses with made-up names. I appreciate your follow up on that”.

Coster exhibits the same misplaced unshakeable faith in McSkimming’s honesty that others have expressed over and over. He also repeats the silly claim of anonymity when everyone knew exactly who Ms Z was. He took no action to corroborate or mitigate Schaare’s concerns. This may be because “Commissioner Coster expressed a preference for Deputy Commissioner McSkimming to be the interim Commissioner when Commissioner Coster stepped down.”

Just over a week after Coster going around asking when the Operation Herb investigation into McSkimming would be concluded, Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham closed it.

By email, he directed staff to close any related matters held in the Police database against Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s name.

Reeves later expressed her disgust at the so-called investigation to IPCA:

“… The handling of this … prior to my involvement is appalling. We have just not followed policy whatsoever and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist… Jevon has tried to get rid of this by making a complaint and … making [Ms Z] the villain, when in actual fact what he perhaps should have done was gone: ‘Can someone look at this and investigate it and get it cleared up? Because I’ve got designs on the future, and I want my integrity intact, so I welcome an investigation. Let’s get it cleared up, get it out of the way’. But you know what’s the worst thing – if you make a mistake … the only worse thing that you can do is then cover it up…You can paint all sorts of nice words of this …but to an outsider looking in, and … I mean even me, this looks like a cover-up.”

Coster was desperate to have the investigation wrapped up so his preferred replacement as Commissioner could get on with getting the job. But even before Basham closed the case on 24 September, Coster texted someone at the Public Service Commission “…I have confirmed that there are no current complaints relating to Jevon, both with our Professional Conduct unit and the IPCA”.

This mislead the Public Service Commission (PSC) as they progressed McSkimming’s application. Heather Baggott says she relied on this information to conclude that McSkimming would be a suitable interim Commissioner.

Coster further endorsed McSkimming to take up the interim role to the PSC in a more formal round of checks on October 8th 2024. In the course of this, his response to being asked “From an integrity perspective, is there anything you need to bring to our attention that has the potential to bring Mr McSkimming, the role of Interim Police Commissioner, or the New Zealand Police into disrepute?” was noted by the PSC:

“Commissioner Coster said ‘in a general sense, no’. He described Mr McSkimming as a ‘values driven leader’ and said he had ‘no concerns about his leadership’ or ability to create followership in the organisation.

Commissioner Coster noted ‘a matter that has been previously disclosed during the Statutory Deputy Police Commissioner appointment. The matter related to a previous relationship Mr McSkimming had with a woman that had escalated in an unpleasant manner. The woman now faces charges in District Court for harassment. Commissioner Coster noted that since the Statutory Deputy Commissioner appointment (made in 2023), ‘we’ (Police) had looked into the communications from the woman (which were anonymous but disclosed by Mr McSkimming). Police approached the woman’s lawyer, to ascertain whether there was a complaint against Mr McSkimming. They did not receive any communication back.

Commissioner Coster noted that the ‘IPCA asked whether we (Police) had investigated’. Commissioner Coster confirmed yes. He said he thought IPCA were ‘content’ with the outcome of the further investigations”.

The IPCA did not mince words in slamming these remarks in their report saying:

The IPCA was entirely unaware at this stage of the deep flaws in the way the Operation Herb investigation by [Nicola Reeves] had been framed, because the complaint had not been referred to us, nor the documents shared as would normally occur when we oversee an investigation. In any case, his comment to PSC was that IPCA was content with the ‘outcome’ of the investigation. This assurance was given despite the comments from Integrity and Conduct noting IPCA concerns.

At this point Commissioner Andrew Coster’s competence and integrity are shot to bits. But the story is not over.

Kylie Schaare did not let the matter get swept under the carpet. The same day, 8th October, that Coster was endorsing McSkimming to the PSC for the interim Commissioner role, Schaare had a Teams meeting with IPCA and shared her concerns.

Coincidentally, the next day, the PSC also reached out to the IPCA to query if they had any complaints relating to the applicants for the interim Commissioner role. As a result, IPCA Chair Judge Johnston KC emailed Coster “asking Police to refer any complaint regarding Deputy Commissioner McSkimming to the IPCA.”

Then, the next week, the IPCA informed Coster that they were launching an independent investigation into McSkimming and Commissioner Coster was not pleased:

[Schaare] received a phone call from Deputy Commissioner PLC [Chris de Wattignar] informing her that Commissioner Coster was not happy about the fact that the IPCA had received the complaint referral and categorised it as a Category A. She says the message she got was that he wanted to know how the IPCA had been privy to that information…[Schaare] was in regular contact with the IPCA by this stage, and she expressed to us at the time her concern that she was not being supported by her senior officers.

…The contemporaneous nature of her evidence, and her lack of motive for providing an alternate version of events, lead us to prefer her evidence that she received significant negative pushback from Commissioner Coster…

Around this same time, 13-18th October 2024, Ms Z spoke with Police properly for the first time about her allegations. IPCA were involved and met with her on the 18th alongside Kylie Schaare. Formal forensic interviews were undertaken with Ms Z on 1 November, 15 November and 27 November 2024.

Coster, rattled by the tumbling house of cards, wrote on October 22nd, to IPCA Chair Judge Johnston KC to complain about the IPCA’s independent investigation and condemn the impact on McSkimming’s career:

“…formally express my concern about the chain of events leading up to the commencement of this investigation and its potential impact [on] Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming’s career.

My primary concern relates to the Authority’s decision to commence an investigation at such a critical point in the Commissioner appointment process, given all of the circumstances of this case.”

The IPCA notes that the so-called ‘facts’ he laid out to Judge Johnston were clearly simply McSkimming’s narrative without any attempt having been made by Coster to verify or corroborate. He painted a picture of McSkimming as an honourable victim who had been transparent with Police throughout while Ms Z was conniving and sought to discredit him. He played the anonymous-card again despite everyone knowing who she was. In fact, the IPCA points out “they had no difficulty in locating her when they wanted to search her premises and arrest her.”

Coster also erroneously asserted that Police had “initially tried to provide support to [Ms Z] through the joint Police/Health multidisciplinary …FTAC, using a mental health-led approach”. And he claimed no formal complaint had been made despite at the fact that at that very time Ms Z was engaging with Police in interviews.

He closed his coercive email to Judge Johnston with:

“In summary, I am concerned that the Authority may inadvertently significantly increase Jevon’s victimisation from this pattern of harassment and do so in a way that will be irreversible in terms of his career. This is against the backdrop of an issue that has been visible for a very long time and was capable of being resolved long ago - indeed Jevon considered that it had been.

I do understand the difficult position for the Authority in the circumstances. However, it is unfair for Jevon to suffer the consequences of this. A standard investigative approach and timeline in this situation risks a very unjust outcome.

Respectfully, all the circumstances point to a need to clear up this matter before the substantive appointment process reaches its point of making recommendations to Ministers, and it seems this should be entirely possible, when the history of this matter is considered.”

Coster was in full interference mode. He was seeking to cover for his chosen heir. In the course of his mad dash to control the situation he also:

…held meetings on 30 October and 4 November with members of the executive, and representatives from Police Integrity and Conduct, regarding the investigation, its relationship to the Ms Z prosecution and how it would interact with, or impact on, Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s application for the role of Commissioner of Police.

The IPCA report described the 30th October meeting in a similar tone to Coster’s email to Judge Johnston. Attendees described that:

Coster talked at length about the issue of natural justice for Deputy Commissioner McSkimming – that he had already been the victim of harm caused by Ms Z’s harassment and, if the matter was not resolved quickly, that harm would be compounded by denying him the opportunity to apply for the Commissioner role.

He also spoke of how the prosecution of Ms Z would damage her credibility and that this would be good for resolving McSkimming’s investigation. He said “with the Ms Z prosecution still active, Deputy Commissioner McSkimming would try very hard to use against her, in her own prosecution, anything Ms Z said in her interview as a complainant.”

Former police commissioner Andrew Coster Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

What Coster tried to do next is even more audacious. If that is even possible. It shows the lengths he was willing to go to in order to cover up for McSkimming and have him succeed him as Police Commissioner.

Andrew Coster proposed setting up a “special national assessment team outside the usual process, to assess and decide on the appropriate investigation pathway to be used for Ms Z’s complaint” and that this special team should “comprise himself and Deputy Commissioner Kura.”

Yes. The Police Commissioner was so desperate for the allegations against McSkimming to go away that he tried to put himself and Kura as the sole people in charge of the investigation.

The NZ Herald must not have read this part of the report because today they published an opinion piece by Thomas Coughlan which said:

“Coster by all accounts is a decent man with a good moral compass, but he seems to have been so nice, so trusting, he couldn’t see the scandal unfolding before his eyes, and, apparently out of a desire to protect a colleague, unwittingly put himself in the centre of one of the biggest police scandals in a generation.”

Pardon the digression. I had to share it.

Back to the meeting: Thankfully, the Director of Police Legal Services piped up to say:

…it was not appropriate, on account of conflicts of interest, for Commissioner Coster and Deputy Commissioner Kura to be involved in any decision-making regarding criminality, and that this should rest with a senior criminal investigator, with oversight from the Assistant Commissioner of Investigations or a detective superintendent, with an external legal lens applied by the Crown.”

Attendees of the meeting also all spoke of Coster’s insistence that everything happen very, very quickly. One said “…so at that point there was a lot of pressure to complete a criminal investigation…within a week.” The same Director of Police Legal Services pushed back again on this and Kylie Schaare describes that this was the first time she felt someone else was on the same page as her.

Coster’s motivations seem to have been rather apparent to those at the meeting. One person said: “…it was quite clear that he was very invested in Jevon becoming the next Commissioner.”

Our heroine, Kylie Schaare, said she told the Director of Police Legal Services after the meeting:

“…we can’t and should never be dictated by a suspect’s needs, the fact that he’s applying to be Commissioner is irrelevant in terms of the criminal investigation... we’ve basically been asked to do an adult sexual assault investigation in a week, including interviewing the suspect.”

She perceived that Coster and Kura were totally conflicted by their relationships with McSkimming and Coster’s determination for him to be his replacement.

Another officer, Officer K, from the National Integrity Unit, told IPCA:

“I walked away from that meeting, as I say, with some concerns. I really thought that the idea of rushing through some sort of quasi-investigation was fraught with risk, particularly given the position that, you know, there were sort of two aspects to it, particularly given the position that Jevon McSkimming was applying for and how that might later play out and the Commissioner talked about natural justice for him and my first thought at that point well, if there’s any substance to what [Ms Z} is saying, how about justice for her.

…I couldn’t reconcile the Commissioner’s approach with sound investigative practice and it just constantly surprised me because he’s a sharp man, former detective, he knows how investigations operate and he was previously a Crown prosecutor, so all those things and yet I was still gobsmacked at the idea that he wanted to take some sort of shortcut to a resolution.”

The same group of people attended another meeting a few days later on November 5th 2024. It also had a vibe of intense urgency created by Coster and Kura. Coster, of course, denies this, but the IPCA does not put stock in his refutations:

Commissioner Coster submits that it is not fair to rely on the views of others to reflect his intent at these meetings. Given the consistency of the views of other attendees, and the consistency between these views and the sentiments expressed by Commissioner Coster in his letter to the IPCA, we accept the account of the meetings as provided by other attendees.

The IPCA also challenges Coster’s unquestioning acceptance of McSkimming’s narrative and his focus on the potential outcomes insofar as they related to what he saw as the rightful process to organise his succession. They criticise his failure to:

…consider an alternative possibility: that there may have been, at a minimum, problematic elements to the relationship between Deputy Commissioner McSkimming and Ms Z. These included the likelihood of a significant power imbalance generated by the age difference and Deputy McSkimming’s status as a very senior member of Police; the possibility that Ms Z’s concerning conduct in the sending of harassing emails, rather than simply making a complaint, may have been a step taken by a person in trauma; and the possibility that she had been told by Deputy Commissioner McSkimming that she would never be believed if she tried to report his behaviour to Police. He therefore appears never to have turned his mind to the fact that Ms Z may have been emailing out of desperation, because no one would listen to her complaint.

Ultimately, and very significantly, the IPCA found that:

Commissioner Coster tried to influence both the IPCA’s decision to investigate and the NIU’s investigation into Ms Z’s complaint. While Commissioner Coster focused on the need to afford natural justice to Deputy Commissioner McSkimming, he did not sufficiently consider the injustice that would arise if there was indeed truth to Ms Z’s allegations.

In the first week of November 2024, things began to move quickly. The National Integrity Unit had their first interview with Ms Z and Operation Jefferson was launched to actually investigate her complaints (where the hopeless Operation Herb had not). Operation Jefferson was run by Nicola Reeves and led by Officer V.

The operation kicked off just days before Andrew Coster’s last day as Commissioner on 8th November 2024.

And then, less than a week after Commissioner Coster left the Police, on the 14th of November 2024, Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming “commenced a period of special leave.”¹

On the 20th of November 2024, Richard Chambers was announced as the new Police Commissioner and he took up the role on the 25th ending the brief period in which Tania Kura was interim Commissioner. Knowing what we know now, the fact that Chambers was something of an outsider is a total relief. In fact, for most of 2024 he was not even in New Zealand as he was serving at INTERPOL in Lyon, France, as Director of Organised and Emerging Crime.²

Richard Chambers. Photo/NZPolice

Yesterday on Herald Now, Ryan Bridge asked Commissioner Chambers: “Do you think they didn’t want you to be the Commissioner because you might come in and find out all this little secrets?”

His response was: “That’s quite possible, Ryan. I have no doubt. I said very clearly I am no friend of members of the former executive.”³

The race for Coster’s replacement was down to McSkimming and Chambers when the proverbial hit the fan. Coster clearly saw that either his mate, who he had run interference for, was going to get the job, or this other guy who wasn’t part of his crew and had expertise in sniffing out organised crime. His desperation makes sense.

On the 23rd of December, just under a month after Richard Chambers took up his post as Commissioner, McSkimming was officially suspended from the New Zealand Police.

He then resigned in May 2025. Radio New Zealand says this came a week after they approached his lawyer asking about allegations that objectionable material was found on his work devices. The same day McSkimming resigned, Richard Chambers ordered an independent review into the Police’s IT systems. Funnily enough the review “recommended better oversight of all police-owned devices, including those which sit outside the police network for legitimate work purposes.”⁴

He was arrested on June 27 2025 in connection with charges of possessing objectionable material. He first appeared in the Wellington District Court via video link on the 3rd of July 2025 and on the 18th of July the interim injunction that had prevented media from naming him and his charges, lapsed after his further application was declined. He was represented by well-known ex-TVNZ journalist and Labour’s go-to lawyer, Linda Clark.

She argued that the injunction was to protect McSkimming’s right to a fair trial:

“Naturally, in an application such as this, public interest will be front of mind and, your Honour, we say that public interest has been served by the amount of information already in the public domain about Mr McSkimming.”

He was remanded on bail without plea on the 4th of August. He was facing eight charges of possessing objectionable publications including child sexual exploitation and bestiality material over a four-year period.⁵

Jevon McSkimming in Wellington District Court on Monday, August 4, 2025. (Source: 1News)

The charges were all representative which means the charges filed are examples of a broader pattern of alleged offending. In other words, instead of charging the accused with every single instance of the conduct, the prosecution has selected specific counts that represent the wider behaviour. If convicted, the court can still take the full pattern into account at sentencing.

Following the remanding of McSkimming, Commissioner Chambers said:

“The prosecution of Mr Jevon McSkimming shows no member of the Police is above the law, no matter how senior.”

And he is right. It may have taken far longer than it should have. McSkimming may have nearly landed the top job. But in the end, they got him.

On the 6th of November this year, Jevon McSkimming pleaded guilty to three representative charges of possessing objectionable material.

The summary of facts from the case reveals why McSkimming was so brazen as to think he could get away with using police devices to view and download objectionable material. It notes that he :

was appointed Chief Security Officer (CSO) for New Zealand Police in March 2021, responsible and accountable for protective security and ensuring that protective security policies and implementation is aligned with police objectives, risk, and requirements…

He was also a member of the Security and Privacy Reference Group and had intimate knowledge of how police systems worked in regard to the information on devices:

In late 2020, police made the decision that six-monthly internet usage monitoring reports, supplied to the SLT [senior leadership team], would cease. The defendant would have been aware of this change, in that the monitoring reports had stopped, and were no longer getting routine visibility at any governance group table.

Following the independent review into IT systems that occurred after McSkimming’s resignation, Richard Chambers reinstated these audits of data and internet usage.

The New Zealand Herald reports that the first recorded objectionable search took place on July 1st 2020 “which was as far back as the police’s retrievable records could go.”⁶ An incredible, one third of all the Google searches McSkimming made on his work phone related to adult or pornographic material. The Herald reports:

Some of his search terms included references to underage girls, incest, and animals, and words such as “slave”, “abuse”, and “extreme”.

The New Zealand Police protected one of their own at the expense of justice. They dismissed a young woman’s cries for help, refused to investigate credible sexual-misconduct claims, and instead prosecuted her to protect the reputation of a powerful man.

The affair itself, while morally dubious, is not the central issue. The issue is the institutional response, or rather, the deliberate non-response. Senior police who knew of potential criminal misconduct treated it as a reputational nuisance, not a duty to investigate.

This is not incompetence. It is corruption. The rot of loyalty over truth, self-interest over integrity, and power over justice.

To be continued…

1. https://fyi.org.nz/request/29745-dates?

2. https://www.police.govt.nz/commissioner-police?

3. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/police-commissioner-richard-chambers-scathing-of-predecessor-andrew-costers-mcskimming-secrecy/O6QTCGN4HJF6RPD44P4KRF7IWQ/?

4. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellington/ex-top-cop-jevon-mcskimming-admits-having-child-exploitation-bestiality-images-on-work-devices/7IGOIZTETVGDJFNRAYO7WGYQVA/?

5. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/568907/former-top-cop-jevon-mcskimming-faces-charges-of-possessing-child-sexual-exploitation-bestiality-material?

6. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellington/ex-top-cop-jevon-mcskimming-admits-having-child-exploitation-bestiality-images-on-work-devices/7IGOIZTETVGDJFNRAYO7WGYQVA/?