Probation officer’s suspension invalid

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 9

Probation officer’s suspension invalid

The suspension of a Christchurch probation officer, Mr K. A. G. Birss, by the Secretary for Justice, has been declared invalid in a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal. # Mr Birss has been awarded $2OOO costs and reasonable sums for the High Court hearing, and travel and accommodation expenses for the hearing in Wellington last month. The Court comprised Mr Justice Richardson (president), Mr Justice McMullin, and Sir Thaddeus McCarthy. In a 20-page judgment, Mr Justice Richardson said suspension of Mr Birss was a drastic measure which must have had a devastating effect on him. Mr Birss was suspended from his job on December 22 last year by the Secretary for Justice, Mr S. J. Callahan, and was the result of an inquiry made into the Christchurch probation office in 1981. On May 19,1982, Mr Birss received a notice containing various charges laid against him from the then Secretary for Justice, Mr J. F. Robertson. Nothing more was done about the charges until, 19 months later, Mr Callahan suspended Mr Birss with pay until January 20 this year, and without pay thereafter, pending the hearing and determination of the charges. Mr Birss’s question to the Court of Appeal was whether, after the lapse of 19 months, Mr Callahan had breached the principles of natural justice and fairneess by suspending him.

The Court held that there had been such a breach. The Court was told that Mr Birss had not been given any opportunity to be heard on the matter. Mr Justice Richardson said the prejudice against Mr Birss by the suspension could never be assauged. even if he were ultimately vindicated at a disciplinary hearing, restored to his office, and paid arrears of salary. Mr Justice McMullin criticised the State Services Commission for not seeming to have displayed any strong desire to have the matter resolved. It had been alleged in the charges that Mr Birss behaved in a manner calculated to cause unreasonable distress to other employees of the Probation Service by making derogatory comments about the management of the Christchurch

service, and of the District Probation Officer, Mr D. D. Leech, and made allegations in a Christchurch hotel about a fellow officer, Mrs J. Smith, having entered New Zealand illegally, and that he had made telephone calls arranging for various supplies or services to be delivered to Mr Leech's home address and failed to attend regularly at staff meetings and had supplied information of a deliberately damaging nature. Also, that he was guilty of improper conduct by failing to disclose alleged irregularities between a female probation officer and her female probationer, and that he had disregarded or made wilful default in carrying out a lawful order and had disclosed information to “New Zealand Truth” about the Probation Service in Christchurch.