Cop’s slightly secret NY Honour
It’s arguably Detective Inspector Tom Fitzgerald’s highest achievement as a police officer. One that’s gone a long way to him being appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours – but he can’t really talk about it.
Fitzgerald, a member of the criminal investigation bureau (CIB) in Christchurch for more than 20 years, led the development of pioneering new interviewing models for questioning police suspects and sources.
‘‘It really is the lifeblood of targeting serious crime,’’ he said of the latter, known as the National Confidential Human Intelligence Sources model,’’ he said.
‘‘[It’s] an extension of the highlevel interviewing [of suspects] that I teach. How to talk to people, how to treat people and how to manage the risk involved to them and us. That really is about the length of what I can say without overstepping the mark, sorry.’’
Fitzgerald has been honoured
"It was fantastic to be recognised and pretty humbling actually.'' Detective Inspector Tom Fitzgerald
for his service to the New Zealand Police and the community.
He joined the Christchurch CIB in 1994 and has overseen some of the most high-profile cases in the region, including the murder of Emma Agnew in 2007 and the killings of Tisha Lowry and Rebecca Chamberlain, whose bodies were found beneath the floorboards of the Aranui ‘‘House of Horrors’’ in 2009.
‘‘Every’’ homicide stayed with him, he said, although he cited Agnew, a deaf woman raped and murdered by Liam Reid in 2007, as one of the worst.
‘‘She was missing for some time,’’ he said.
‘‘That’s something that will always stick with me. It was a very tough inquiry. You don’t expect to go to work at 9.30 in the morning and not come home.
‘‘For all those reasons that inquiry, for everybody on it, was one that will stick in everybody’s mind.’’
Fitzgerald left Christchurch last year for Australia, where he is now a New Zealand Police liaison officer based in Canberra.
When he was appointed to the role his boss, Canterbury district commander Superintendent John Price, described him as ‘‘instrumental in positioning the police district as one of the best performing CIBs in the country’’.
A year later, Fitzgerald demurs. Even his work on interviewing techniques was ‘‘a team effort’’.
‘‘I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had an executive who are forward-thinking and have given me a licence to do things that should be done,’’ he said.
‘‘It was fantastic to be recognised and pretty humbling actually. It hasn’t sunk in to be honest. You don’t ever expect that anyone’s going to take the time to do that when you’re just doing your job.’’