50 A FRACTION TOO MUCH FRICTION.

A fraction too much friction

by David Fisher

The inside story on how what some call a tradition of bullying in Taumarunui’s police community has led
to nationwide changes in the force.

To arrive at Taumarunui, you must descend. The roads wind down through steep hills and rich farming country, forested slopes, volcanic plateaus. You don’t travel to Taumarunui. You lower yourself into it.

Delving into policing in this King Country town evokes a similar feeling. Each layer that is peeled back reveals another, and another. And at the bottom is the disturbing story of an old style of police management – the sort of policing that pushed good men up against a hierarchy that refused to give in.

Sergeant Craig Hawkins won’t drag police business before the public eye. That’s just not how it’s done in the police, and Hawkins follows the police book on police business.

Senior Constable Andy Harland is another creature altogether. He, too, is a good copper but never really followed the book. In fact, for long periods he worked undercover where following the book can get you killed.

The pair were among a group of officers who left Taumarunui police station in a case that police headquarters says has influenced improvements in how officers are treated across the country. Police headquarters human resources boss Wayne Annan: “The issues at Taumarunui have contributed and assisted us with some of our thinking. If you look at Taumarunui in isolation to everything else, you’d probably say, ‘Oh, my God.’

But it’s fair to say it’s not the only example of that in the organisation. It’s not unique – but it’s also not the norm.”

Part of that culture change is a shift from the traditional, hierarchical style, which has “features of a military organisation” and “does not sit well with a normal employment environment”, Annan says. The increase in the size of the police force then added greater pressures on managers. “Policing has not given a lot of those supervisors the skills they need.”

But, as with the revelations in the case of allegations of sexual impropriety by Clint Rickards and other officers in Rotorua during the 1980s, police headquarters failed to budge until the human cost became incredibly high.

Hawkins and Harland were the pair who refused to buckle. Hawkins, who left the police, got his uniform back after winning an Employment Court case, aspects of which are under appeal. And Harland eventually got an out-of-court settlement and the merit award denied him while he failed to toe the headquarters line.

You’d think this is the police force we want: officers who have the courage to stand up for what is right, and have the law on their side to prove it.

They stood up to management’s failure to deal with the issue and to a bully who was named by at least a dozen police officers as the reason for leaving the station. So why, after seven years of fighting, is police headquarters paying Harland to go away – and trying to get rid of Hawkins again?

Craig Hawkins felt forced to quit on psychological grounds, the result of the appalling behaviour of police management, Employment Court judge Coral Shaw found. It took seven years for the case to reach court, and when it did, she ordered the police to put Hawkins back in uniform.

He had transferred to Taumarunui station in 1996 even though, according to Shaw’s judgment, he knew CIB boss Detective Sergeant Derek Webb “had a reputation as a bully”. Webb was meant to retire – but never seemed to leave and was there in 2000 when former station chief Senior Sergeant Ronald “Buck” Buchanan began winding down toward retirement, as new area controller Inspector Don Allan was appointed.

It was not a happy place to work, said the judge. “There was tension between Detective Sergeant Webb and other staff because of his bullying and intimidation of them.” One officer spoke to Allan about Webb’s behaviour and was assured that measures were in place to “sort it out”.

Friction between certain staff and Webb was persistent. Shaw heard evidence of Webb making inappropriate comments to some female staff, shouting at others, and suggestions he was gathering information on those he fell out with.

Hawkins believed he was one of those. Shaw described one argument at the station during which Webb said he would “never forgive” Hawkins for some slight. Hawkins was already concerned about his work relationship with Webb, and began to form the opinion Webb would unfairly target him, Shaw said.

Again Allan was approached, this time by Hawkins who was so “uptight” he was “physically shaking”. He was assured Allan would rein Webb in. Still, nothing appeared to change.

Hawkins, by now acting officer in charge of the station, sought help in April 2001 from police welfare officer Janet Baker. He wanted a counsellor, felt overworked and, said Shaw, “was consumed by fear” that Webb would “get him”.

About this time a Taumarunui woman made a complaint that her brother and another youth had suffered an assault by Hawkins while in police cells the year before. A complaint was made to the Police Complaints Authority, then passed to Central Districts commander Mark Lammas, who in turn passed it to Allan.

Given the tensions at the station, it was thought unusual that Allan appointed Webb to carry out the investigation. In Shaw’s view, the decision to place the preliminary inquiries into “the hands of a person who was known to be bullying him was not only unwise, it was insensitive and inflammatory”.

Hawkins, ignorant of the investigation, noticed Allan and Webb had become “secretive”, said Shaw, The first inkling he had was when Webb approached Hawkins and another officer and suggested they look at a file on Webb’s desk – an action Webb later acknowledged was inappropriate.

The file contained statements detailing the allegations against Hawkins, terrifying him. A stomach ulcer flared up, followed by depression and symptoms of excessive stress. Hawkins contemplated harming himself and was placed on sick leave.

On May 7, 2001, Allan wrote to police human resources saying: “I do not anticipate Sergeant Hawkins returning to work after this time.” Shaw said it was important to note that Allan had dismissed the possibility of Hawkins returning to Taumarunui station even though assault charges were yet to be laid – and Hawkins had not been told of the allegations against him.

Again, Hawkins sought out welfare officer Baker, who told him Detective Inspector Doug Brew was visiting to investigate the assault allegations.

From then on, Shaw found, Baker and Hawkins began talking about the officer leaving the police force through the Perf scheme (designed to give departing police officers a lump-sum payment from their retirement plan if they can no longer work for physical or psychological reasons). The scheme at the time was politically sensitive, with criticism of high-profile payouts to officers.

Shaw found it likely that Baker had told Hawkins that he needed to “Perf “before being charged, or he could lose the money.

“You’ve got to get the green stuff,” Hawkins quoted Baker, who denied the statement.

On May 9, while Hawkins was on sick leave, Inspector Allan called a staff meeting at the Taumarunui station. Two accounts of the meeting were placed before the Employment Court – and Shaw chose to discount the version Allan gave under oath.

The version she accepted was that concerns were raised at the meeting over Webb’s attempts to target Hawkins, and whether the other officer in the cells during the alleged assault would also be charged. Allan handled staff questions, and afterwards spoke privately with Sergeant Michael Craig. Allan told Craig he was “surprised Hawkins was still in the country”, that he couldn’t see him returning to Taumarunui because of the mood in the community following the controversial shooting of Steven Wallace in nearby Waitara a year earlier, and that it would be “foolish” for Hawkins to defend the charges.

Shaw said she believed this was a deliberate indiscretion, intended to send a message to Hawkins. If so, it worked. Craig immediately phoned Hawkins, who took detailed notes. Craig signed the notes as a true record shortly afterwards. Shaw noted that Craig was “extremely uncomfortable” when called to give evidence in court, and was “attempting to resile” from the signed notes.

Shaw said, “Mr Hawkins was devastated by what Sergeant Craig told him. He believed Sergeant Webb had won.”

Craig was so concerned about Hawkins’ state of mind that he went to his home the next day to remove firearms. Another friend later said he feared Hawkins was so depressed he would “kill himself”.

Court records show Hawkins was effectively broken by Allan’s comments. He “sat down and cried”, rang a friend in “a blind panic” and accepted his advice to travel to Wanganui, but was so afraid of arrest he drove the entire route on back roads. While there, he met with a Police Association representative who reinforced Baker’s message that he would lose his retirement money if he didn’t Perf before being charged.

Hawkins’ application to leave the police on medical grounds was filed on May 10, on the rounds of mental health problems connected to a lack of management support and his treatment by Webb.

The application, which went to police headquarters, included the opinion that Webb had unfairly targeted a police officer in the past.

On June 18, Hawkins was charged with criminal offences relating to the alleged assault, and his application to Perf was granted by a police assistant commissioner on June 21.

Hawkins maintained the charges were “bullshit”, which in essence was the district court’s view when it threw the case out. The police case was riddled with holes, there were conflicting statements from the “victims” and two other officers present made statements that cast doubt on the charges.

Hawkins walked free from court, his character clear of any stain. But his career was ruined, his spirit near-destroyed and he was unemployed.

Derek Webb joined Taumarunui station in 1989, transferring from Auckland where he worked as a general duties officer, CIB officer, and member of the armed offenders squad and the special tactics group.

Webb doesn’t agree with others’ views of him. “I am not a bully,” he says. Instead, he says, he is the victim of an organised campaign driven by Harland and Hawkins. That campaign extended to the Employment Court hearing, he says, in which evidence before Judge Shaw was not properly argued. Police headquarters let him down, he says, by not covering the cost of a lawyer to represent him. Shaw never got the full story, he adds. The real story is that there were no problems at Taumarunui station. “Not a problem, not a problem at all.” Instead, there was stirring by Harland, which caused its own issues.

On allegations Hawkins assaulted prisoners, Webb says it was one of many Police Complaints Authority cases he investigated. Webb says he never once unfairly targeted a fellow officer while investigating a PCA case. Sure, he showed Hawkins the statements alleging he had assaulted prisoners, “to give him an idea of what other people were saying about him”.

The spin put on it showed the “paranoia” of Harland and Hawkins, says Webb. That “paranoia” was baseless, as Webb sees it. “All these incidents alleged by these people happened over a long, long time [and were] thrown together by Hawkins and Harland.”

But in the opinion of retired Inspector Keith Coulton who was station commander until 1993, “Webb was the epitome of the workplace bully. No matter what your rank, if he disagreed with you, he would get in your face. And I mean six inches from your face.”

Several staff, including Coulton, recall incidents in which Webb would shout until red in the face, spittle flying, berating staff for behaviour or standards he considered unbecoming.

Coulton: “He was a supervisor’s nightmare. I had a lot of trouble with him.”

Discontent at Taumarunui station prompted the first of two internal inquiries that revealed evidence of Webb’s behaviour to police management. Three senior officers were subject to the inquiry: Coulton, Webb and one other. Webb received a reprimand for refusing to name the informant behind a search warrant under question. Coulton and the other officer faced no further action but frustrated and tired, they Perf-ed. Both cited Webb’s behaviour in their Perf papers, Coulton says.

“Buck” Buchanan, now 67, took over the station, and the role of Webb’s supervisor. He says in his opinion Webb was “one of the old school … He was a bully, yeah. It was the way he used to talk to staff, and if you didn’t agree with him, he would make life hell for you.”

A second inquiry – Operation Plateau – was launched in 2002, and included interviews with Hawkins, and Harland, who was increasingly having trouble with Webb, and with then-area commander Inspector Don Allan, who appeared to support Webb.

Harland became a policeman in his forties, after a successful business career in Taumarunui. Like others who fell out with Webb, Harland had a good understanding of functioning relationships between employer and staff. In 1995 at 42, he was posted to Taumarunui, serving as a frontline officer for three years before joining the police undercover programme.

Over the next four years, Harland worked on four major undercover operations. Each was successfully completed, partly because Harland’s unorthodox style and relaxed personality undermined the occupational caution of the career criminals he targeted. He was told he would receive a Commissioner’s Silver Merit Award for his undercover work – an award withheld until this year’s settlement of his employment grievance at Taumarunui, where Harland would work when not undercover.

Officers working undercover constantly fear that criminals they turn over will discover their identities and target them or their families. So Harland was astonished when Don Allan rostered him on highway patrol, a highly visible posting. Standing at the roadside, waving down passing vehicles, he was increasingly fearful that any criminal he had targeted would identify him. The posting was later overturned by Mark Lammas, Central District commander.

Operation Plateau investigating officer Detective Inspector Godfrey Watson noted in his report that Harland was feeling constrained after new procedures stifled the discretion of individual officers. Watson received a slew of statements about Webb. Some backed the senior detective, many did not.

Karen Ngatai, who later quit, citing Webb’s “bullying”, told Watson that Webb had verbally abused her. She was also disturbed that Webb had displayed homicide photos of murder victim Beverly Bouma in the coffee room. She cited both matters when she left the police, later winning a personal grievance against headquarters.

Two documents show the extent of concerns. One is a list of 14 officers in Taumarunui who in a 10-month period either quit the police or transferred to other stations after describing difficulties with Webb and his management style. The other is a statement from clinical psychologist Ellen Duckworth that the seven local officers she had seen in 2000 and 2001 had suffered mental health problems including burnout, anxiety and depression due to “organisational difficulties”.

“DS Webb had a reputation for getting rid of his enemies and was believed to have a network among some senior police officers so that attempts to criticise him or call attention to his behaviour were in fact passed on to him,” Duckworth wrote. “To my knowledge the difficulties relating to him had been a significant factor in the decision to disengage by four experienced officers.”

These were also passed to Watson. Yet, his final report said “there does not appear to be a wider issue of genuine issues causing staff to depart Taumarunui more than other areas”. His findings on Webb appear contradictory: “There is no clear evidence of Webb being vindictive”, but then, “That is not to say there was no vindictiveness on Webb’s part at some stage.”

He agreed there may well be issues with how Webb handled some staff matters but Watson said the reason for those actions was “clear and justified”. Webb, Watson stated, “has from time to time perhaps made an error of judgment” but no more so than anyone else.

By the time the Operation Plateau report came out, Hawkins’ mates were confiscating his hunting rifles so he didn’t blow his brains out.

His former colleagues quit before it got that bad – officers with collectively dozens of years in the police left.

Harland hunkered down, churning out letters while pursuing his case through the Employment Court. For seven years, he chewed away at headquarters. The Listener counted 116 emails and letters sent by Harland over a 120-day period of his campaign. Ask Harland what he was fighting for? “Justice.” That’s his style – big issues and big brands.

He found other forms of income, running a local holiday lodge while still a policeman but not allowed to work as an officer. Even as this story is written, Harland is a serving police officer, even though it is six years since he has been allowed to work.

Meanwhile, Hawkins’ decision to fight had a profound financial impact. He would have been earning about $80,000 as a police sergeant when he left. With a family to feed, he tried running his own ground-spreading business for the first 18 months, although it never turned a profit. He then worked as a meter reader ($26,000 a year) and later settled for a long-term job with Ravensdown fertiliser company ($31,000).

But he retained his love of the job. He was certified medically fit to return to the police in 2004, although police headquarters refused to entertain the notion that he would ever wear the uniform again.

Then, this year, it changed.

First, Hawkins enjoyed an overwhelming victory against police in the Employment Court. Judge Shaw’s judgment damned police actions. Hawkins was “constructively and unjustifiably dismissed”, she ruled. The reason: “ … the ongoing betrayal of his trust and confidence in the police administration through its failure to address the systemic dysfunction in the Taumarunui station”. Police management should have foreseen the path they set Hawkins on but “his resignation was actively and wrongly encouraged by the actions of Inspector Allan”. Although Shaw did not criticise the laying of criminal charges against Hawkins, she said “it was incumbent on the Commissioner [of Police] to ensure the presumption of innocence applies to police officers as it does to all citizens”.

At a subsequent hearing, police were told they had to return Hawkins to his job at Taumarunui station, pay $35,000 for humiliation and most of his $100,000 in legal fees, and reimburse his salary back to 2003 to make his earnings up to a sergeant’s pay. The entire payout would have cost taxpayers close to $400,000 – not counting the thousands of hours police lawyers spent fighting the case.

Costs mounted when headquarters offered Harland a settlement. He won’t say how much, but it would have been on a similar scale to Hawkins’ deal. As part of the deal, Harland agreed to resign from the police. He would finally receive his overdue merit award but had to agree to confidentiality over the agreement.

The one exception is the telling line in the settlement contract, which he insisted police allow him to publicly quote. It reads: “ … employment practices within police have resulted in this matter arising and the defendant (the police) acknowledges practices have changed”.

After 18 years of denying a problem, the police now conceded there was one.

Webb remains adamant there were no problems at Taumarunui, even though Shaw found the station a shambles and police management now agree.

“People said it must have been terrible going to work there,” says Webb. “There was a lot of good work. There were three homicides in my last year and they were all solved. The staff pulled together.”

Contrary to Shaw’s ruling, the current view of police headquarters and many staff there at the time, Webb says, “There was a real esprit de corps.”

The Listener found Hawkins back on the streets of Taumarunui, resplendent in his deep-blue uniform, everything that needed polishing was polished, and his uniform pressed to perfection.

No, he won’t talk. That’s not the way it’s done in the New Zealand Police. That’s not by the book. Sure, some officers shoot their mouths off, but headquarters has a firm view on matters like this, and even though Shaw found it “betrayed” Hawkins’ trust and confidence, he’s keeping the faith.

And yet, police headquarters has filed an appeal over aspects of the case, including trying to overturn the order to return Hawkins to uniform.

The police are also defending Allan, currently in an international liaison role based in Hawaii. “Inspector Allan came into a very difficult environment, charged with sorting out a number of issues … that had probably existed in Taumarunui for a long time,” says police headquarters’ HR boss Wayne Annan. “In that environment, even a very skilled manager would make an error.” Annan concedes, though, that Allan should not have prejudged Hawkins’ case. On Allan’s suggestion that Hawkins leave the country, Annan says: “Some people say some very unwise things sometimes.”

Annan says factors that should be taken into account include the understanding that police employment practices at the time were governed by the Police Act and not general employment law. Another was that existing problems at Taumarunui meant the station “did not measure up to the level of appropriate management that New Zealand Police expect”.

Asked if police agreed with the view that Webb was a bully, and that staff had quit as a result, Annan said: “In many of the employment situations that I have managed here there have been elements of supervision that have been unacceptable in any organisation, that have meant that individuals have either left the organisation, or left the place where they worked. We have done a lot of work in Taumarunui and other locations to improve the style of supervision.”

And so the problems at Taumarunui have ultimately contributed to changes in police management around the country.

If the police needed an expert while they developed their new strategy, they have one working at Taumarunui station. Sergeant Craig Hawkins has witnessed how bad it can get when management fails. He knows the cost to the lives of officers and their families.

And if the police have their way, the lessons Hawkins has to pass on will disappear with him when, finally, he is forced out of uniform.