Ardern Jacinda: Urgent Debates — Roast Busters Case—Independent Police Conduct Authority ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Urgent Debates — Roast Busters Case—Independent Police Conduct Authority Report[Sitting date: 19 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2441. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour)on behalf of Carmel Sepuloni (Labour—Kelston): I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. It is devastating to say that there is only one way to describe the report that was released by the Independent Police Conduct Authority at midday today and that word is damning. One year on from a thorough investigation that started under the Independent Police Conduct Authority in November 2013 we have a report that clearly demonstrates a failure to follow through adequately on the complaints that were raised not by one not by two but by several young women which documented abhorrent behaviour against them. It shows that there was a failure to consider all of the options around prosecution which directly contradicts some of the later police investigation. It shows a failure even to record properly the personal information of the alleged offenders. It shows a failure to consider alternative options—if indeed prosecution was not one of those options—by the police in terms of holding those alleged offenders to account. And it shows a failure even to communicate adequately and properly among the number of different police officers who were involved in this case.This report shows that these young women were absolutely the subject of a failed process—there is no question of that. We should all be absolutely alarmed and concerned that that has been the case. I think it would be helpful to go back to the beginning just to cover off what has led to the situation where the House is conducting an urgent debate today. I will then go on to cover some of the specific and most concerning elements of this report.At the end of 2013 there was a series of disturbing stories that became public in the media which related to what can only be described as abhorrent behaviour by a group of young men towards a group of vulnerable young women and girls. I want to highlight that some of these young women were merely children at the time that some of these events took place. We were all disturbed by what we heard and saw in the media and of course we expected that there would be an opportunity for a swift response and action by the police—that was the public expectation. We know that there are always layers to these issues so of course it was incumbent on the police to share with us as much as they could—to share with the public—about what they had done to work alongside those victims.The police response was to state that there had been no formal complaints and therefore that they did not have sufficient evidence to pursue an investigation. I want to reiterate that with a quote from the police that went into the public domain. They issued a statement that stated: “… in the absence of significant evidence such as formal statements there is not enough evidence to prosecute the alleged offenders at this time.” The public of course was severely disappointed that there was not therefore from the police’s perspective the ability to pursue what we all agreed was abhorrent behaviour. The Minister even came out publicly and implored those who were involved in this case—the victims in this case—to be brave. That was the statement that the Minister used in the public domain—that they be brave.Putting aside the fact that it should not have to be incumbent on any victim to have to be brave to go through a criminal justice process to have justice done—that should not take bravery—our young women in particular should have been well enough supported that it would not take courage to endure our system and yet those were the words used by the Minister. So that in itself raised some significant and concerning questions. But leaving that aside we then within a few days had a report by TV3 that included another victim coming forward and stating that it was her belief that she had in fact laid a formal complaint and had given a statement and that nothing had been done. Of course we were all alarmed to hear that additional information.Labour was swift to make a complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority because questions were raised in our minds as to how it was that the police did not know that a formal complaint had been made let alone thoroughly investigated given the nature of the offending that was alleged to have happened. I want to quote from the complaint that Labour made in my name to the Independent Police Conduct Authority at that time. We stated: “While all these issues need to be reviewed there is a wider question of the adequacy of the investigation itself and the decision that there is insufficient evidence to lay charges. In particular what efforts were made to corroborate the complaints laid by the victims? Was there a full investigation including the execution of search warrants and potentially electronic surveillance”—remembering how much of this awful situation did occur online—“and what advice was received before making the decision not to lay charges? Given the current constraints experienced by the police in terms of resourcing we would also urge that the authority look at whether this impacted on the child protection team over the 24 months that this investigation has taken place.” And finally we stated: “The actions of the local police to protect potential victims while this investigation was under way is also worthy of assessment. The information available in the public domain certainly suggests that intervention via schools and social networks was needed to protect other young women who may have been subject to alleged predatory behaviour.”I feel absolutely justified in the fact that Labour made that complaint and unfortunately this report vindicates it. I do acknowledge that the Minister of Police laid a similar complaint at the time. But this was not the first report. The first report released by the Independent Police Conduct Authority looked into the way the police interacted with the media and the release of information relating to this complaint. I will not dwell on that report but what it did flag was that there was a complete breakdown in communication between the police officers involved in that complaint—a complete breakdown. You can see in reading that report that one of the concerns was certainly that the police were absolutely stretched. There were clearly resourcing issues. Although that does not excuse individual failings towards victims it does raise massive red flags which I hope the Minister of Police will pay heed to. Again it continues to be a concern for us that we have a police force operating with a $40 million budget cut. That does absolutely eventually have consequences and I fear that it has had consequences here. But as I say none of that can be an excuse for the way individuals are treated within a process as serious as this.I want to go through the key elements of the report where there are the most significant concerns—and I would like to hear a response from the Minister of Police on these. The first is the complete and utter lack of coordination. It is highlighted from the very first paragraphs of this report—indeed when the Independent Police Conduct Authority outlines how many cases it was tasked with looking at it says right up front: “At the start of the Authority’s investigation in November 2013 it was informed by Police that they had received reports of concern about four separate incidents …” They go on to say: “During its investigation into the … handling of [the] complaints … the Authority identified that Police also responded to three other reports of concern involving young women and this [same] group of young men.”The Independent Police Conduct Authority itself identified that we were not talking about four incidents; we were talking about seven occurrences where the police had an opportunity to join the dots between a systemic problem—between abhorrent behaviour on multiple occasions involving multiple victims—and it was not picked up. Of course regardless of whether it had happened multiple times each of those individual victims should have got an individual response that should have given them faith in the system. It should not have taken seven cases to build a case against these young men. But the fact that even that was not identified is a massive massive problem and was one of the key problems identified by the Independent Police Conduct Authority.Issue No. 2—and this goes to the most basic of principles obviously for the police—is whether or not the lines of inquiry were thoroughly followed up; whether or not these complaints were thoroughly investigated. This is highlighted again by the Independent Police Conduct Authority which found that—I want to highlight this one point—“… all of the Police officers involved in these matters treated the young women and their families with courtesy and compassion…”. We acknowledge that. However the report goes on to state: “… in several of the cases because officers concluded that there was insufficient evidence to proceed without the cooperation of the young women they decided that no further action was required.” This is an uncomfortable truth. Yes a few of the young women did not feel comfortable continuing with their complaint and we need to spend a lot more time debating why that is and what we can do to remedy that.That aside the Independent Police Conduct Authorityfound that the police should have kept going anyway. They should have continued with their investigation and lines of inquiry—and why? Because these were children. In fact the Police’s own policy states: “All reports of child abuse must be thoroughly investigated even if the child or young person recants or parents and caregivers are reluctant to continue.” That is a quote from the Police’s own policy on these issues. So although the police thought that they were doing the will of the victim their policy actually required them to take responsibility and to continue to investigate and they did not.What was also inadequate about the way this investigation took place was that they did not even identify that it was the same young men who were involved; they did not record properly the information about those young men. They did not do other inquiries or police checks to see that other complaints had been made about them. And this is a key point. The Independent Police Conduct Authorityfound that if the police had done that then surely they would have thought about engaging in alternative ways of dealing with this case. If the police had decided that the threshold for prosecution had not been met why did they not simply engage in some good old-fashioned policing and go to the homes of those alleged offenders and hold them and their families to account? How is it that complaints like this were being made about these young men and the first time the police engaged with them was for an inadequate ill-prepared ill-considered interview—and that was it.I might be old-fashioned but I would wager that I am not alone in the public in saying that the police should have knocked on the doors of those young men. Regardless of whether they were there to put handcuffs on them they should have questioned them on their behaviour. They should have told their families about what was going on. They should have done everything in their power to stop further victims from being put through the situation that these seven young women were simply by confronting their behaviour. That did not happenProbably one of the most significant other findings of the report is the question of whether everything was considered in terms of the ability to prosecute these offenders. I want to read from the report because this is particularly important. It considered whether or not sexual conduct with a young person under 16 which is section 134 of the Crimes Act was properly considered by the police as an option for prosecution. It states: “Under section 134 of the Crimes Act 1961 everyone who has a sexual connection with or does an indecent act on a young person … has committed an offence. … There is no question that these young men were aware that the young women involved in the six cases … were under 16 years.”—there is no question—“The Authority recognises that it is uncommon for Police to prosecute a young person under section 134 for sexual connection with a person of the same or a similar age. … It is clear that this general thinking underpinned the approach taken by the officers in these cases. … The Authority does not accept the validity of this reasoning as there were a number of aggravating features in these cases that should have prompted consideration of such a prosecution. … In our view the fact that the parties are close together in age while a relevant factor is not determinative. … The reality is that a prosecution under section 134 says nothing about the presence or absence of consent because it is simply irrelevant to the facts that need to be proved.”What needs to be proved is age and as the report points out the young men involved in this case absolutely knew these young women were under age. The report finds that the police should have at least discussed this option with the victims. It is clear that the failings noted in this report are significant. The police have a lot to do if they want to give security to victims in the future that they will handle these complaints adequately.