34 Responses to “32 GOOD COPS”
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Good cop frozen out of force
24/3/2007
A controversial senior Christchurch police officer has left the force after 34 years, claiming he was frozen out of the job.
Senior Sergeant Colin Campbell, 51, once ran the busy police kiosk in Cathedral Square, managing 28 staff.
But, he said, for nearly three years he had languished without a proper job – no office, no desk, no phone and no computer.
“I didn’t even have a chair,” he said.
“When it got to the stage that my supervisor was having to ring me at work on my personal cellphone to talk to me, I realised it was best to get out.”
While Campbell chose to retire, he said it was as a direct result of how he had been treated by management.
In 2001, Campbell sustained a knee injury when he went to the aid of Asian tourists who were being attacked in central Christchurch.
However, he is better known as the officer who reported allegations that a boss harassed a female waitress at a corporate function at Jade Stadium three years ago.
Campbell made several attempts at reporting the allegations to his superiors but, feeling his concerns were not being acted on, he went to the Police Complaints Authority (PCA).
The PCA is reviewing how Canterbury police bosses dealt with the allegations. An inquiry has been completed by police national headquarters and the PCA is now reviewing it.
New Zealand First MP Ron Mark is also pursuing the case. He claimed before a parliamentary committee for the PCA’s annual financial review last year that Campbell was being drummed out of his job on medical grounds because of his knee injury.
Mark said this week he believed Campbell had become a victim for daring to challenge the bosses over issues that concerned him.
“New Zealand First will watch with interest the employment proceedings that will naturally flow from this,” he said.
“Our assessment of the situation is that he has been frozen out of his job for opening his mouth and for daring to challenge and ask questions.”
Campbell said policing had been a major part of his life since he joined as a cadet in 1973, but his job had become untenable. He was a senior sergeant for 16 years.
“It was most disappointing that I was into my third year in the New Zealand police without a designated job,” he said.
The last straw, Campbell said, was when he missed out on annual pay rises because he was not allowed to take fitness tests or firearms training.
“As a result of being attacked on duty, I have lost $6000 of income over two years,” he said.
Campbell saw an offender throwing hot coffee over Asian tourists in an inner-city food outlet one night. Campbell was chasing the offender when the man turned on him, dive-tackling and crunching Campbell’s knee.
“When the offender appeared in the District Court, the judge hearing the case commended me on my courage and bravery,” said Campbell.
He had a partial knee reconstruction in 2004.
Campbell said other police staff have had pacemakers, been on kidney dialysis, suffered strokes and even changed gender on the job, but none had been treated as harshly as he had.
Canterbury District Commander Superintendent Sandra Manderson rejected Campbell’s allegations but said she had not received a release from him authorising her to publicly discuss or elaborate on his case.
“However, at all times Mr Campbell was treated equitably in response to the police’s obligations around health and safety, and independent advice received from Mr Campbell’s advisers,” she said.
“It is disappointing that members of the police seek to debate employment issues in the media knowing that privacy issues prevent the police from commenting.”
Manderson said police were available to speak to Campbell directly, “though he has not raised any issues with us since his departure; nor has he raised an employment relationship problem”.
Campbell has written to the new PCA head, Justice Lowell Goddard, asking for a full independent inquiry into management issues and said he was optimistic that it would happen.
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Retired police officer Rex Miller has no regrets about speaking out in support of Louise Nicholas.
04.02.2004
By JULIE MIDDLETON
Former Detective Chief Inspector Rex Miller is a blunt talker with a dry sense of humour. He is frequently politically incorrect and fond of the odd colourful word.
But he is also articulate and straight-up. At one point in a wide-ranging conversation, he says: “If you tell the truth you don’t have to have a good memory.”
And he doesn’t regret for a moment speaking out in support of mother-of-three Louise Nicholas, who has accused three men, all then policemen, of raping her in 1986, when she was 18. Mr Miller, then a detective chief inspector, was engaged by the Police Complaints Authority to look into the whole affair. But he says he was hamstrung by a wall of silence and alleges interference by John Dewar, then the head of Rotorua CIB.
Mr Dewar strongly rejects the claims and says he fully investigated Mrs Nicholas’ complaints.
Mr Miller now says “if there is something to be resolved from it, let’s resolve it. Not just for the three [officers] involved but for all cops who have to walk the beat tomorrow.
“I want to see it [the inquiry] bloody finished. If things aren’t resolved to the nth degree, they always have a habit of jumping out of the cupboard.”
Maybe that belief, and some niggling cop’s sixth sense, led him to take into retirement his notebook with details of interviews with Mrs Nicholas. “I did, for some unknown reason, keep my notebook because I had some unease,” he says.
He hopes he will be asked to assist with the latest investigation.
In a Waikato Times story on the eve of his retirement in 1999, Mr Miller was described as an old-school policeman, “staunch, conservative and an expert at dodging questions … [he] has a gruff temperament that borders on grumpiness. He is also wise, very wise”.
The story also said that some called him “dinosaur” behind his back.
Ask Mr Miller to describe himself and he says, instantly: “Straight down the middle. I call a spade a spade … and I speak my mind.”
When he was in the police he expected everyone, junior staff included, to speak up if they had issues or ideas. But, he says, “I’m pretty bloody average”.
However, he has inspired another generation of officers: one daughter and a son are police officers in Hamilton. His second son is a paramedic in the US Army.
These days Mr Miller is golfing and fishing and teases that in being married to his wife, Jill, for 39 years, he has done nearly three life sentences.
Although Mr Miller says of his career that “every day was a highlight” - and that “it’s a bloody highlight every day you wake up in the morning and you’re breathing” - several events stand out.
Among them is the case of English tourist Margery Hopegood, stabbed to death by Wayne Paekau in a public toilet beside the Waikato River in 1992.
There’s a lowlight, too. Mr Miller seems pretty sore about it still, and doesn’t want to discuss the case of the five Gisborne police officers cleared of corruption charges in 1998.
He led the case against the men, but his Operation Vine team was berated after an independent inquiry by Judge Russell Callander. In July 2001 Mr Miller and another detective were paid $50,000 between them after filing personal grievance claims alleging that they were made scapegoats.
Rex Miller
Born: Pukekohe. Age: 60
August 1963: Starts as constable, aged 19, in Hamilton.
December 1965: Transfers to CIB in Auckland to train as detective.
1970-1982: Works in Henderson, Christchurch and the Trentham police college.
October 1982: Becomes detective inspector and transfers to Hamilton.
September 1986: Made detective chief inspector and head of Hamilton CIB.
March 2000: Retires.
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Former policeman said to have made deathbed confession
04.02.2004
A former policeman made a deathbed confession saying he was warned to keep quiet about rape claims made by Louise Nicholas, the Dominion Post reported today.
The newspaper said a friend of the policeman, Louise Nicholas’ brother Peter Crawford, said that the week before former Rotorua policeman Trevor Clayton died last year, Mr Clayton broke down and said he wanted to ask for forgiveness from Mrs Nicholas and her family.
Mrs Nicholas alleges she was violated with a police baton and pack-raped by three police officers, Clint Rickards, Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton, when all were Rotorua police in 1986. She says that Mr Rickards and Mr Shipton continued on occasions to have sex with her against her will.
All three strenuously deny the allegations.
Mrs Nicholas said she asked Mr Clayton, whom she knew through her family, to try to make his fellow officers stop, the Dominion Post reported.
Mr Clayton was integral to the original police investigation of the case, the newspaper said.
Yesterday that investigation was reopened by police, at the same time as the Government announced a commission of inquiry into the matters.
The man who assigned himself to investigate the original allegations, former head of Rotorua CIB John Dewar, said in a police document obtained by The Dominion Post that Mr Clayton told him Mrs Nicholas had complained to him about what some Rotorua policemen were doing to her.
In the document, Mr Dewar is alleged to have said that Mr Clayton said there could have been criminal implications to Mrs Nicholas’ complaints.
He said Mr Clayton had said he was prepared to lie on oath to “protect his mates” if asked about Mrs Nicholas in court.
But Mr Crawford told The Dominion Post that, as Mr Clayton lay dying, he wanted to come clean about what he knew.
Mr Crawford said he became “best mates” with Mr Clayton during a 20-year friendship. Mr Clayton had been a groomsman at his wedding.
Mr Crawford said he knew his sister made allegations that police officers in Rotorua had sexually assaulted her in the mid to late 80s. Because of their divided loyalties, Mr Crawford and Mr Clayton did not discuss the allegations in great detail until a few days before Mr Clayton died.
Mr Crawford said that Mr Clayton’s partner telephoned him saying Mr Clayton wanted to see him.
“Trevor was gravely ill. Everybody that had anything to do with Trevor knew he didn’t have long to go. He had cancer … I shot round there to visit him and we sat down and caught up on some old times and then he quite suddenly got quite emotional,” he told The Dominion Post.
“I felt he wanted to get something off his chest with me. He broke down and held my hand and basically he wanted to come clean with the issues regarding my sister.
“He asked me for forgiveness and Mum and Dad’s forgiveness and Louise’s forgiveness … like I say, he wanted to come clean on the whole deal but he told me he was gagged, that he was told to shut up and it was quite emotional for him.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to listen to … and he never actually got that chance in the end. He passed away approximately a week later.”
The Dominion Post: “There was no doubt what he was telling you was that these police officers had acted unlawfully in the way they treated Louise?”
Mr Crawford: “Definitely, yes … I think, with Trevor being out of the police force, his relationship with his mates in the police force became strained over the issue.
“He certainly wanted to clear, have it all out in the open and have it cleared up and he was definitely gagged. Threatened maybe.
“He said, ‘There’s definitely been a cover-up’ … he was definitely having trouble coping with it because he knew it was illegal.”
Mr Crawford said that, though it was difficult knowing that Mr Clayton had known things about his sister, he remained his friend because he had tried to make clear his conscience. “Yeah, we were, we were mates.”
Mrs Nicholas said she had forgiven Mr Clayton.
Mr Dewar said yesterday that he had fully investigated Mrs Nicholas’ complaints and welcomed any inquiry into his actions.
Mr Dewar has been accused of manipulating Mrs Nicholas in order to protect his colleagues. However, in a brief statement yesterday, he denied all allegations of wrongdoing and said he had not compromised his inquiry into Mrs Nicholas’ complaints.
He would co-operate fully with any inquiry and looked forward to being exonerated.
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Former Police Superintendent Tony McCloud and Constable Matt Fage.
The international standard for police dogs biting suspects during apprehension is 10%.
The NZ Police are relaxed about having police dogs bite more than 1 out of every 3 suspects during apprehension. That’s a bite ratio of more than 33%.Former Police Superintendent Tony McCloud says that the dog squad is excessively violent.
Former NZ Police Sergeant Tony Greg says that police dogs are regularly set upon already surrendered suspects.
Former NZ Police Sergeant Alex Hope says that it is common practice to set dogs on already surrendered suspects.
Former Police Constable Simon Ruru had surrendered and was laying face down when a Police dog handler commanded his dog to attack him.
Ruru was later charged with assault on the dog handler but a jury did not believe the Police version of events and found him not guilty.Police dog handler Constable Matt Fage and his dog Blade last year made 150 catches which resulted in TWO dog bites. Compare that with the 60% bite ratio for another dog squad member that those in command say is not inconsistent with NZ Police standard practice.
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Hi Jack,
What happened to Dewar when he was to appear on the 28th of July. Cant find anything about it.
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Dunno Rob, I had a look too, his appearance in court must have been a bit boring.
Don’t worry, he’s going for a big skate. hehe
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For your info. Constable Matt Fage didn’t catch 150 offenders with his dog, some of those were from stopping cars etc.
Also Simon RURU was well conected with gangs and was a “P” junkie. He never should have worn the uniform and the rest of the world has a 10% bite ratio. Good on them they also have firearms and their offenders surrender more readily. A visiting overseas cop stated he could not beleive we didn’t carry firearms and was amazed at how many offenders wanted to fight or wouldn’t surrender even when cornered. Mate you want to post all this stuff at least get the facts right first. Maybe you should be in parliament.
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Oh yeah I also hope those three rapists go for a big lag. At least two of them are already doing time
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Thanks for your comments donk.
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Former constable Simon RURU who had allegedly surrendered after he was running from police AFTER he had seriously beaten his partner in a “P” rage. But you failed to mention that bit aye Jack.
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Oh yeah an assault he was convicted of!!!!!!!
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Forgive me for failing to mention something I didn’t know donk. If you have the details post them up.
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The Police Complaints Authority says it needs more staff if it is to deal with cases more quickly.
The PCA has a backlog of 2,000 cases, 39 have been open for more than four years and over 600 have been open for more than 18 months.
PCA head judge Ian Borrin says some matters are on hold as they are subject to court processes. But he admits the PCA does not have enough staff to review police investigations of complaints as quickly it would like.
The Police Association says most officers are exonerated and are being put under undue strain while waiting for complaints to be dealt with.
Borrin says the government is considering the PCA’s resource situation.
Justice Minister Mark Burton says he is reviewing the resources available to the PCA.
Burton says he is getting advice on what changes are needed, but it is difficult to assess how many cases are being unreasonably delayed.
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Simon Ruru was not a good cop, he bashed his Mrs, bit her in the head, broke her arm etc etc. I reported the story from the courtroom. Get your facts right.
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I didn’t say he was a good cop Speedo, did I?
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There r no “good” cops. They all think they are above the law. And I say that after my own experinces with the dirty little pig shitters. Intimatation is their faverite tactic. One time I had a pig shit tell me he was going to have my kids taken from me by CYFs because he couldn’t spell my name and i wouldn’t assist him with it. He should have gone to school is how i see it my names not that hard to spell. Chris.. is that hard to spell? No i dont think so. Two days after that incident there was a CYFs worker on my doorstep wanting my kids cause I “DO DRUGS” what a load of crap.I had to fight and prove my self so that CYFs lady wouldn’t take my kids. My kids now fear police people because they were there when the pigshitter treated their removal from me, they wouldn’t go to school for a week just incase he (the Pig) came and took them. NZ POLICE WHAT A JOKE.
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I have recently embarked on the long journey of making a complaint against my ex husband who is a cop. Some of them most certainly think they are above the law. The higher up the ranks you go, the more cover-ups there appear to be.
I now understand it is up to me to prove that he is guilty, and that my private/personal life can be strewn about the public arena, and used in court while he is protected from his past indiscretions. I do not trust the Police one bit.
The Louise Nicholas case has done nothing for the Police, Public opinion of them has probably never been lower and rightly so. They cannot investigate themselves, the “brotherhood” is just too tight to be objective.
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If the cops reject your complaint Lizzie you can get legal aid and prosecute him privately, don’t bother with the Police Complaints Authority, be a total waste of time.
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Hey Jack
The Police are investigating 16 years of abuse, 7 of them we haven’t even been together, he constantly harrassed me and my kids. There is a special task force, who are very selective in what they tell me re the progress of the case. Even though I am now a single mum I apparently earn too much to get legal aid. The PCA will be investigating after the Police have finished. I have excellent evidence and if they do not lay charges there is something very flawed in this system (haha like I didn’t know that already). My ex is high profile and I have made complaints to the Police in the past which have not been taken, standing in a Police station with a black eye and a blood nose and they asked me if I was sure I wanted to make a complaint when they found out it was one of thier own who assaulted me. Amazing.
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If you would like to tell me more in total confidence Lizzie you can email me at jjnvdl@yahoo.com.au I’d like to help all I can. Cheers Jack.
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Thanks - will do, moving house again this weekend to get away from him, will email you once computer reset up. Probably Sunday. Cheers Lizzie
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Ok Lizzie.
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great cop in our neighbourhood,has extra marital affair while on duty,leaves cop car parked on street, some days up to 4 hour a day…
for 3 years this goes on,but it’s no big deal to local hierachy… taxpayers you’ve been paying this guy to f**k around.
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That was probably my ex-husband ….. That’s the kind of behaviour that appears to be common, no morals.
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if he worked from the Taradale police station it will be him!
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Police deliver massive drug bust
‘P’ drug bust biggest ever in New Zealand and results in six arrests
25 May 2006Auckland police have announced the biggest methamphetamine bust in New Zealand history.
Ninety-five kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and 150g of pseudoephedrine - which is used to make the drug P - have been seized coming into New Zealand ports.
Police have made six arrests, including two New Zealand residents, a Hong Kong national and three Chinese nationals. A search warrant at the properties of the Auckland-based offenders also uncovered three hand-guns, one pen-gun, an M-16 assault rifle and false passports.
The consignments were concealed in shipping containers originating from China, and is by far the largest quantity ever seized, far surpassing the previous high of eight kilograms.
The drugs had an expected street value of $135 million and is believed to have been destined for the New Zealand market.
© 2006 NZCity, NewsTalkZB
A job well done I see…
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Lizzie - I can totally relate and empathise with your situation. I was seeing a senior officer for a long time who didn’t treat me well. When I went to make a complaint against him they just took my evidence and told me that they’d keep it on file should anything happen again! Fortunately I was able to leave him but when he started to contact me again and I got in touch again with the same station regarding him they told me they had no record of my complaint and that the evidence was no longer there!!!
I hope your situation is starting to work out and that there’s an end to it in sight
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That’s why you ALWAYS have to get a copies of anything they write down Mels.
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Tell me about it! I have never made that mistake again.
I’m just fortunate that I have a fantastic friend who helped me to get everything sorted without having to go via the police and I’m now completely free of him.
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~yawn~
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PI in pursuit of the truth
Saturday August 26, 2006
By Michele HewitsonBryan Rowe, private investigator, is not sure if his agency, Double 8, is in the phone book. It’s not. There is no sign either outside his Albany house, which is his office.
He doesn’t advertise and you’d be hard pushed to pick him from a line-up because you probably wouldn’t recognise him again. The PI is wearing a beige top and beige bottoms and slippers. He is a nondescript fellow, which is probably handy in a PI.
Or it might be if he was the sort of PI who went on stake-outs and caught cheating spouses. But he doesn’t.
He is a former top cop who investigates miscarriages of justice and this involves files and methodic plodding - and quite a lot of publicity. His own name is in the phone book. Anyone who has need of his services will likely know his name, not that of the unpublicised agency with its one staff member: Rowe.
He works from a gleaming and orderly house. We’d been fiddling with the blinds, trying an idea for a photo, and his wife Judith apologises for the dust. There isn’t any that I can see. Rowe’s house is, I think, a lot like his mind. He is very focused. There is no clutter inside his head. He doesn’t just go for a walk every day but a “brisk walk”.
Long before his retirement from the force on “April 2, 1996″ he stopped socialising with other police officers. “It made it so easy when I left. Nothing changed as far as social life was concerned.”
There is a John Connelly thriller on the coffee table. It belongs to Judith Rowe, who says: “Bryan doesn’t read. He only reads boring stuff like files.”
If he has one frivolity it would be a flutter on the horses. But he no doubt studies form - he also reads Best Bets - as closely as he examines a case.
He goes into his office off the hall and returns to the living room with three fat orderly files, flips one open and starts reading. These are the Rex Haig files, a case Rowe has been involved with since 1997.
Haig’s conviction for murder was quashed by the High Court this week, but the ruling did not completely acquit him. So Rowe’s mind is still on the case. He’s got his files out and is looking for an affidavit; for one word, actually, among many thousands of words.
The word is “sea” and this word, he says, is a vital piece of the evidence that proves Haig did not kill fisherman Mark Roderique.
I haven’t asked him about this. I am waiting, sitting on a couch, to interview him. I don’t know why he’s decided to get the files out; why he’s decided, at this particular moment, to go looking for this particular word. He denies he is an obsessive type. He is also not combative, not dogmatic. He says.
He was a police officer and now he’s a PI who often investigates police cases. To his mind, nothing has really changed. “When I was in the police … I only did one thing and that was to search for the truth. I don’t do anything different as a private investigator.”
He goes at things methodically. It is also how he goes about talking about himself. He has a patience for talking, born, perhaps, of spending hours in small rooms getting information out of people. I think he enjoys the irony that people now come to him, sit in his living room for hours and try to get information out of him. I wouldn’t care to interrogate him; it would take forever.
He has amazing recall of his career, from the time he was at police school. The file in his mind is another fat, orderly one.
He was a cop for three decades and he has a lot to say about being a police officer - and a lot to say about police officers which they may not enjoy hearing. He says that when he was a police officer he was naive and “bloody narrow-minded”. Now that he is a PI he is not.
He can see why, because of the types of cases he now investigates, there might be a perception that he is anti-police. “Oh yeah, I’m sure that feeling exists within some police officers. A lot of them class me as, I guess … a turncoat. But my heart’s still very much with them.”
When he was a copper he most certainly did not appreciate PI’s “sniffing around”.
PI Rowe has had what he calls “an enlightenment in my life”. He is, actually, almost evangelical in his conversion to the other side - although he would never regard it that way. He’s still on the side of right, according to him. There was the “Bryan Rowe [who] was bloody naive for 33 1/2 years in the police. Bryan Rowe never believed people in New Zealand could be wrongly convicted of serious crimes. I put my hand up. I was totally wrong because in the police there’s a narrow-minded culture that you develop … ”
He says he is proud of his years in the force but I can’t quite reconcile how this sits with that self-professed, narrow-mindedness and naivete.
“Yeah, well, I was naive in that I thought because I’d been doing what I was doing and locking up baddies - and plenty of them - that all my colleagues were doing the same and they likewise weren’t making mistakes either.”
He says he didn’t make mistakes. “During my police career, of course you hear of people who are convicted later saying, ‘I didn’t do it’. I’m not referring to any case that I did. I’m confident that in all the major trials I had people were properly convicted. I’ve got no problems at all. I can sleep very easily every night.”
This is not to say that he was the most perfect policeman in the country. “No. I worked with some bloody good policemen. I’ve got the greatest regard for them.”
He once made this offer to then police commissioner Rob Robinson: “I have learnt so many important things about policing, about where things go wrong, I can really help. What I’d like to do is come down and pass on the help that I’ve got to some of your senior administrative courses.”
This offer - he says he didn’t want to be paid - was turned down on the grounds that senior police officers would not appreciate this. He is sorry about this but understands it: “A closed mind. I was like that, too.”
Oh, I don’t know. He was pretty good, by his own admission, at annoying those in authority from early on.
“I seemed to, in my career, from time to time, have a bit of strife with the administration. I was never a ‘yes’ man and I didn’t tolerate wrong advice or wrong policies or things like that and in life … you have the option of going along with the flow, even though you know what’s being done is not in the best interests of the organisation, or you debate the issue.
“And within the police there’s always been the culture and probably always will be, because of the type of organisation it is, that might is right. That if you’re lower down the chain, then you do what you’re told and if you want to debate the issue then you get into dangerous territory.”
When he was a young detective he had a disagreement with a detective inspector who said Rowe had entered a wrong charge on an arrest sheet. Rowe went to the crown prosecutor, whom he knew, and “he said ‘you’re right’ and gave me some legal background”. He then told the DI this and that “I’ve got some pretty powerful support on this”. The DI came back to him a day or so later and said, “over that matter. [The crown prosecutor] could be right.”
He loves this story - and loves telling it many years later - because the DI wouldn’t admit that Rowe was right.
His focus has never changed. His abiding interest is in what is right. Which usually means him. This would also be a very good thing if he decided your miscarriage of justice was one worth investigating. He is not, remember, combative, dogmatic or obsessive. He comes outside in his slippers to see us off. He looks like a mild-mannered 66-year-old retired policeman. But there’s no sign outside advertising that a rather well-known PI lives here, either.
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Is this the same clown who gave “expert” evidence for the Wallace family on how Abbott should have used pepper spray, when he had no experience of using it himself - what a tosser.
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don’t you think you guys are all a little bitter, sounds like the only reason your against cops is becuase the cops are against you, and usually that means your just a low life dole bludging scum bag that preys on decent people. get a life, get a job, grow up.
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or maybe you bitter because all you ever wanted to be was a cop and you couldn’t pass the fitness test, or weren’t intelligent enough or had a criminal history … maybe thats why your bitter … deep down you really wanted to be a cop… hahaha … losers!
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How much of 09 Agent Provocatuer did you read norman?