Time on the force ‘ruined my life’
As a policeman, Frank Van Der Eik was on the front line of some of the country’s toughest situations. Now, writes Hamish McNeilly, he’s battling his own demons.
The death of a baby continues to haunt Frank Van Der Eik after nearly 40 years.
Back then, he was a 21-year-old police officer called to a cot death in the small Otago township of Outram.
‘‘That job on its own has affected me more than anything else, because as a policeman you have to take the baby away,’’ he says.
That’s no small concession from the 59-year-old, who during his 13-year police career dealt with the 1979 Abbotsford Slip which destroyed 69 homes, the mayhem of the 1981 Springboks Tour, the brutal beating of fellow police officer Peter Umbers in 1990, and, six months later, the Aramoana massacre.
Those experiences left Van Der Eik a broken man, and he’s been in a prolonged battle with ACC for help to alleviate his post-traumatic stress syndrome.
‘‘I am still living policeman but I am ACC,’’ he says.
Van Der Eik’s career started in 1978 when, as ‘‘a natural cop’’, he was collaring criminals on the mean streets of Muldoon-era Wellington before he decided to return today as a investigating to his hometown of Dunedin.
But after a decade on the beat he was a shadow of his former self: burnt-out from attending call-outs, long hours and the never-ending cycle of fatal car crashes and domestic violence.
And then there was the shotgun pulled at his head, the meat cleaver wielding assailant, and having his neck slashed by a saw.
The result was ‘‘a complete breakdown’’.
‘‘I couldn’t get out of bed one morning, I couldn’t stop crying,’’ he says. ‘‘I felt my whole life was destroyed.’’
In 1988 he checked into Dunedin’s Ashburn Hall where for two months he received help for his mental health, while police management tried to get him declared mentally unfit.
Returning to work after a holiday in Australia with his wife and toddler, he found a reliever had covered only 10 days at his solecharge station of Clinton, in South Otago.
He felt his card was marked by police management. ‘‘They just locked me out. I had passed my use-by date.’’
He moved to Middlemarch, but I couldn’t get out of bed one morning, I couldn’t stop crying. I felt my whole life was destroyed. any dream of becoming a quiet country cop was extinguished when he found himself back at the scene of more domestic violence cases and car crashes.
He recalls the night in May, 1990, when he was called – albeit 20 minutes late – to an armed robbery at Poolburn. With little information, and support still an hour away, he was tasked with tracking down Richard Lakich, who had just bashed to death Senior Constable Umbers using the officer’s own baton.
While looking for Lakich, he chased a car which matched a description he’d been given, but it turned out to be a drink-driver. ‘‘If he made one wrong move getting out ... I probably would have fired a couple of shots.’’
Van Der Eik had been in talks with Port Chalmers Sergeant Stewart Guthrie about moving to Waikouaiti, but that changed after the Aramoana massacre on November 13, 1990.
That day he was listening to the police radio, when he heard Guthrie warn gunman David Gray to stop ... before an eerie radio silence. It was only when he was sent to Waitati to set up a roadblock in case the gunman tried to escape, that he discovered his friend had with 12 others.
Another job involving being injured while rescuing a baby from a father sleeping with his hand on a gun.
Van Der Eik left 1991 without ever counselling.
But it has been his battle with ACC after police that has taken toll.
His initial claim for posttraumatic stress disorder, one of the first of its kind in New Zealand, was declined from the outset, and it took 18 months just to get a been killed police being along in July offered two-decade leaving the the biggest review hearing.
ACC eventually granted compensation based on his pay prior to his being admitted to Ashburn Hall. And it has taken a fight to get that figure recalculated in 2001, 2006 and May 2017, when he was also paid arrears of $146,793 – although he disputes how this figure was reached and it’s being reviewed.
Van Der Eik’s Dunedin-based lawyer Peter Sara, an ACC specialist, said: ‘‘As is often the case with these historical things, ACC didn’t get it right, or they didn’t get all the information that should have been obtained.’’
To help fund his legal battle – which has now racked up bills in the tens of thousands of dollars – he sold his South Canterbury home, and moved to Palmerston, Otago, this year.
ACC confirmed Van Der Eik, who signed a privacy waiver to tell his story to the Sunday Star-Times, had received weekly payments since July 1991.
Van Der Eik says he’s fighting for the other 129 officers, including former undercover operatives, currently on ACC.
Asked to respond to his claims that he had experienced delays, denials and avoidance, a spokesman said: ‘‘ACC staff do their best to work their hardest and I am sorry to hear that that is the client’s view’’.
Van Der Eik said his fight with ACC had been very unhealthy. ‘‘I don’t want to be here . . . but they have forced me here. This has ruined my life.’’