Searcher accused of secrecy breach

A MEMBER of a volunteer search and rescue group is being investigated for allegedly breaching confidentiality by discussing details of a search outside the organisation.

The allegation has been made against John Montgomerie, a member of Hawke’s Bay LandSAR, which helps police in search and rescue operations.

It follows the search in December last year for 77-year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer Fiona Wills, who disappeared from her Te Pohue home, in rural Hawke’s Bay. She has not been found.

This week, Montgomerie posted online an extract from a letter he said he received from Hawke’s Bay LandSAR.

According to his post, the letter said: ‘‘The group has received a complaint from the police against you regarding, by your own admission, a breach of confidentiality whereby you have discussed aspects of the Wills search to persons outside the group.’’

Montgomerie posted the extract on FYI.org.nz, a website on which members of the public can lodge Official Information Act requests to government agencies.

His request, which appeared to be directed to police, asked for ‘‘all evidence and all supporting information . . . that caused or gave credibility to the allegation raised’’.

The request has since been removed from the site.

Detective Wayne Steed, a search and rescue co-ordinator and Hawke’s Bay police liaison officer for LandSAR, said the matter was being investigated by LandSAR and ‘‘it’s not a police issue’’.

A memorandum of understanding between police and the organisation included a condition that volunteers involved in police searches keep details about them confidential, he said.

LandSAR New Zealand chief executive Harry Maher had no comment to make on the matter.

Montgomerie also declined to comment.

More than 100 people were involved in extensive searches for Wills, but found no sign of her.

Wills’ son, former Federated Farmers national president Bruce Wills, said he was aware of the Montgomerie issue, but it was not something in which his mother’s family had an interest.

They were grateful for the work done by police and search volunteers, and held no grudges, he said.

Steed said no further information had come to light since the searches. ‘‘I’d love to resolve it one day.’’