Sex allegations: Labour to run two inquiries
The lawyer who led Labour’s investigation into the conduct of a parliamentary staffer says he wasn’t told of sexual assault claims.
Simon Mitchell, an Auckland employment and family law specialist, issued a statement through his own lawyers yesterday.
Mitchell says that ‘‘at no point’’ did a young volunteer tell him, or the panel, that she was sexually assaulted.
And he says he had his computer ‘‘forensically analysed’’ to prove it.
In the last week, Labour has been rocked by claims about the conduct of a former staffer, who quit last week.
A Young Labour volunteer claims she was subject to a sexual assault in the home of the party staffer in early 2018. But she and other complainants who alleged harassment, bullying and intimidation, say an internal Labour investigation ignored their complaints.
Party president Nigel Haworth also quit last week, but maintains he didn’t know the allegations involved sexual assault. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern claims she only found out when the claims hit the media early last week.
Now Mitchell, one of the threemember investigating panel, says he didn’t know either.
A letter from Mitchell’s lawyer Penny Swarbrick to Stuff says: ‘‘Mr Mitchell is gravely concerned at allegations that he was the recipient of verbal and written disclosures of a sexual assault by the subject of the investigation... regrettably the statements by the complainant that Mr Mitchell received such information are untrue.’’
The letter also says that claims the woman provided documentation in emails to the panel are ‘‘not credible’’.
Mitchell, and Tracey McLellan, who has previously worked for MPs Ruth Dyson and Megan Woods, and Honey Heemi, one of Labour’s Maori council, met the complainant on March 9 as they carried out interviews for their investigation.
Mitchell says the woman emailed on that morning to say she planned to read from a document and asked for it to be printed off. The email had no attachment, Mitchell says.
Mitchell asked her to contact assistant general secretary Dianna Lacy ‘‘who I am told printed a copy and gave it to the complainant’’. He says he was never given a copy.
‘‘I have subsequently (last week) been given a copy ... and it does not contain any details of the sexual assault against her,’’ he said.
He goes on to say that she never raised the sexual assault allegations at the interview.
Mitchell met again with the woman on May 29 ‘‘to clarify the allegations and the matters that we were investigating,’’ his statement says.
‘‘At no time during that meeting did she say that she had been sexually assaulted by the subject of the complaint... at the conclusion of the meeting she said that she would provide me with more detailed information in the next few days.’’
In June, she sent an email with three attachments, but none refer to sexual assault, he says.
Mitchell says he had his computer ‘‘forensically examined’’ last week. ‘‘There is no evidence of any attachment being sent to me on 9 March 2019.
‘‘There were three attachments to the email to me dated 11 June 2019. None of these attachments or the email itself contain any reference to a sexual assault on her,’’ he wrote.
Yesterday, Ardern announced two inquiries into the scandal. The first will examine its response to the allegations.
A second, by QC Maria Dew, will investigate the sexual assault and bullying allegations against the staffer.
‘‘There are no excuses for Labour’s handling of these allegations and I will offer none,’’ Ardern said. ‘‘Mistakes have been made. It is now my job to address that.’’
Stuff has contacted the woman complainant for her response to Mitchell’s statement.
National Deputy Leader Paula Bennett has responded to Ardern’s announcement of two inquiries, saying they did not go far enough.
‘‘It’s not looking at the Beehive at all, it’s not looking at senior staff and the complaints that led to them, it’s not looking at how involved Grant Robertson and others have been,’’ Bennett said. ‘‘I find it quite telling that the PM would not answer a question as to whether or not a Member of Parliament had gone forward to her and had some involvement in the last couple of days.
‘‘On the very afternoon that the Prime Minister has gone out and announced she has got these two processes under way and that she is going to show all of this respect to victims, one of her own council members that was involved in these decisions has made a statement which is very much victim blaming, and yet again hangs those victims out like that.’’
‘‘There are no excuses for Labour’s handling of these allegations and I will offer none.’’ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern