‘Police slow to investigate their own bad apples’

"We continue to expect our staff to maintain the highest levels of service and to act with integrity, empathy, professionalism, respect in line with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and valuing diversity at all times as per our values." Superintendent Anna Jackson police professional conduct national manager

The victim of a sustained harassment campaign by a Dunedin police officer says cops are slow to investigate their own, and in that sense the force is corrupt.

Police have revealed, under the Official Information Act, that 11 sworn officers were convicted of offences between January 2016 and November 2017.

The offences include assault, indecent assault, wounding with intent to injure, criminal harassment, threatening to do grievous bodily harm, drunk driving and wounding and injuring with intent.

In December 2017, Invercargill police officer Ben McLean, 48, was also jailed for a minimum of 17 years for the April murder of his wife Verity McLean and the attempted murder of her new partner Garry Duggan.

While police did not identify the other convicted officers, some of the most serious offending recorded appears to relate to Dunedin policeman Jeremy Buis, who waged a harassment campaign on a Dunedin businessman for more than two years.

Buis was convicted in July on a raft of charges relating to the three-year harassment of Daniel Pryde after a June 2012 parking dispute escalated. The offending included threatening to do grievous bodily harm and intentional damage.

Pryde, who was subjected to threats, anonymous texts and gay taunts from his tormentor, believed Buis was ‘‘one bad apple’’ but said police were reluctant to investigate their own.

‘‘Police had a lot of opportunities to catch him but it’s almost like they didn’t want to admit there was a bad one. It’s corrupt in that sense ... they don’t do enough to investigate their own,’’ Pryde said.

‘‘They tend to sit on it ... I think they could have done a lot more in the early days to investigate.’’

Another serious offender appeared to be Sergeant Gregory David Waters, who was sentenced in August after earlier being found guilty by a jury on five counts of indecent assault against a woman in her home while Waters was giving her self-defence lessons.

Superintendent Anna Jackson, police professional conduct national manager, said the public rightly expected high standards from police staff.

‘‘We set high professional standards for ourselves and demand integrity from our staff in terms of judgment, choices and actions.’’

Jackson said the fall in convictions against officers over recent years was an encouraging sign, but police were never complacent.

‘‘We continue to expect our staff to maintain the highest levels of service and to act with integrity, empathy, professionalism, respect in line with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and valuing diversity at all times as per our values,’’ she said.

‘‘However, we also recognise that despite the best of intentions, individual staff members are human – they and the organisation as a whole don’t always get it right.’’

On the rare occasions that an officer’s conduct was not in line with police values, they would not hesitate to investigate and deal with the matter appropriately, Jackson said.

The 11 offences relate to officers working in the police service centre as well as police districts including Auckland, Canterbury, Waitemata, Waikato, Southern, Counties-Manukau, Northland and Tasman.

Nine of the officers convicted between January 2016 and November 2017 resigned during the course of investigations, while two returned to work.