Tour complaints against police ‘justified’

Press, 2 August 1983, Page 1

Tour complaints against police ‘justified’

The Chief Ombudsman, Mr George Laking, has found that more than 70 complaints against the police arising from the 1981 Springbok tour were justified.

A 130-page report on his investigations into complaints was released yesterday.

Complaints referred to the Ombudsman came from people who were dissatisfied with the outcome of police investigations. Of the 118 complaints fully investigated by Mr Laking’s office, 75 were sustained.

He concluded that, in general, the police investigations were thorough and conscientious.

“The fact that I have commented adversely on particular aspects of some of their investigations does not detract from that conclusion.”

He emphasised that his conclusions did not provide an adequate basis for a general assessment of police investigations of complaints made against them. The report covered two big incidents in Wellington on the day of the second

test, and several smaller demonstrations, mostly in Wellington and Auckland. Mr Laking withheld all names, except those of two policemen, whom he commended. He found in some cases that the police had used excessive force, but this was only in some specific instances and involved a few unidentified police members and not the police as a group. Some excessive force could also have arisen, he said, as a result of countering the force which certain demonstrators used against the police. Mr Laking described as ill-chosen and unwise phrases like “pick your target” and “pick your shots” which had been uttered by a police squad commander. He accepted the policeman’s explanation that his primary purpose was to maintain the morale and discipline of his men, but “some of the terminology he

used clearly created an unduly threatening impression on some of the demonstrators present.” “The end result may well have been to increase the tension and possibly to contribute to instances of unprofessional behaviour by a few of the men under his control. “It is the view of the police, which I am not in a position to challenge, that as the tour proceeded, the demonstrations were joined by others whose motives were different and who included both individuals and organised groups prepared to engage in violent confrontation with the police and to use whatever means were available to make it impossible for them to maintain law and order.

“By the time the tour reached its closing stages, these disruptive forces were controlling and manipulating the demonstrations for their own purposes to a degree which changed the

character of the demonstrations and often made it impracticable for the police to distinguish between those who did not seek confrontation and those who appeared to welcome it,” Mr Laking said. A condition of general civil disorder had only marginally been avoided in confusion and disorder which reached a climax before and during the second and third tests. He rebuked police officers who publicly defended the actions of their colleagues before complaints against them were investigated, a problem seen as central to the whole question of the police investigating complaints against their own members. Mr Laking said that the police had a responsiblity not only to be objective and independent in their investigations; they had to be seen by the public to be so.

“In the emotional atmosphere surrounding the South African rugby tour, it was not easy to achieve either of these objectives.” Several complainants said that senior police officers had publicly defended police actions before investigations were undertaken. They saw this as prejudging the merits of their complaints. Others felt that some investigators were unduly concerned to justify the actions of their colleagues. Mr Laking said that what occurred probably resulted from a police realisation that the tour had caused some damage to their relations with the public, and investigators were engaged in a public relations exercise to restore the situation. “To the extent that it was carried out in the course of the investigations, it was misguided,” he said.

“It was bound to lead

some complainants to assume that the investigators were not impartial. The time to engage in that kind of exercise was after the investigation had been completed.” Mr Laking also criticised the “uneven” standard of police replies to complainants. He said that the Christchurch complaints section had provided an adequate standard of response. Their letters were detailed, leaving the complainants in no doubt as to the thoroughness with which their complaints had been investigated. In many other instances, he found that although the police had conducted a thorough inquiry, they had failed to give the complainant an adequate account of it. “If they had done so, many of the complainants might well not have come to me.

“The police ... have a responsibility to make a frank disclosure of how they

acted on each complaint and what they found, and to give the complainant an opportunity to comment,” said Mr Laking. In some instances police inquiries were directed exclusively to the detection of an offender and to deciding what action should be taken against him. If identification was seen as impracticable, investigation of the complaint was taken no further. In situations where a complaint was directed against general misconduct by a group of police officers, rather than a single officer, investigation did not seem to extend to an inquiry as to how that misconduct came about, the Ombudsman said. Officers in charge of such groups were not generally called to account for the conduct of those under their command, nor did investigations generally extend to possible deficiences in training or instructions. Mr Laking said that consideration should be given

to the adequacy of existing procedures for the effective investigation of claims of general misconduct, to enable any shortcomings in training programmes or instructions to be identified. . “Instances came to my attention where the basis for deciding whether to prosecute or charge an officer seemed to me open to question, but in the end those doubts were satisfied by the police submissions on my draft conclusions, except in one case,” he said. “In some other cases, a decision not to prosecute or charge was made without adequate efforts having been made to resolve important inconsistencies in the evidence.” In one complaint, the complainants said they were improperly asked by a police investigator whether they intended to bring proceedings against the police. What started as a minor point became a significant one when the Ombudsman’s investigation showed that it was police practice to take account of potential litigation in replying to complaints. In the particular case, the practice resulted in the police avoiding answering one of the four complaints made, Mr Laking said. He said that it was not consistent with the position of, an impartial investigator that he should take advantage of that position to withhold from the complainant information which could be relevant to the complainant’s decision as to whether to initiate a civil action.

“It is for the courts to determine the merits of any such action; not for the police as an interested party to discourage the action from being brought.”