Investigation lacking: IPCA

WELLINGTON: The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found multiple shortcomings in a police investigation of an intermediate school teacher, and police misconduct in a subsequent teachers’ disciplinary hearing.

The authority said there were deficiencies in a 2014 police investigation of an inappropriate relationship between teacher Samuel Back and Reiha McLelland (13) who died later that year. Her death was the subject of a coroner’s hearing.

The investigation was conducted by an officer whose superior, Officer A, was the chairman of the board of trustees at Mr Back’s school, Gisborne Intermediate.

The authority said Officer A’s conflict of interest was not pro perly managed, which meant the investigation was not adequately supervised.

‘‘The investigation plan was inadequate and not all appropriate inquiries were conducted; information obtained from the interviews of Reiha and Mr Back was not recorded appropriately; and the interview of Mr Back was not conducted properly,’’ the authority said.

The authority said Officer A was not actively involved in the investigation, its outcome was not predetermined, and there was not enough evidence to lay charges against Mr Back.

The authority said that was patently wrong and misleading, contrary to police policy and amounted to serious misconduct.

‘‘If the supervisor had intended to mislead the Teachers Council, he would have been guilty of the offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice. However, such an intent cannot be proved’’, said the authority’s chairman, Judge Colin Doherty.

The Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal found Mr Back and his wife Angela Mepham guilty of serious misconduct in February 2016. It deregistered Mr Back, then aged 42, and censured Miss Mepham, then aged 33.

Mr Back had taught the girl while she was in year 8 in 2013 and began an intense relationship with her after she ran away from home and stayed overnight with the couple in October that year.

Police said they accepted the findings. — RNZ