Family down’
tools necessary to support staff provided.
With the permission of the family, this incident will be used as a training case study, she said.
She said the recent changes to their call centres, separating emergency and non-emergency calls was an important change.
International examples showed having a specialised workforce taking only emergency calls led to better outcomes for both police and communities, she said.
The dispatchers involved in this event had agreed to share their experience and lessons learned with others in the role.
Sturgess agreed with the findings of the IPCA and said while they accepted the police apology, she was of the opinion that her initial call “was the only time they could [have saved Navaeh]”.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of [forgiveness], I just hope they’re going to make improvements.”
She said the IPCA findings would, in time, allow them to heal, and wanted to see police-wide retraining on call handling.
“They need to go back to the drawing board and make some improvements,” she said.
Thinking back to the night of the call, she remembered the state of the house, Izett’s state of mind, and being “distraught and concerned”.
“What I really wanted was some physical help, somebody with us ... We needed somebody.”
She had plans to take Naheah to see her mother in hospital, “but that wasn’t possible. He wasn’t going to let us”.
She did not know anyone in Maketu¯ which was why she turned to the police.
“We could have tried harder for her,” she said, of herself and the police.