Birss case charge withdrawn

Press, 31 July 1984, Page 4

Birss case charge withdrawn

The State Services Commission has applied to withdraw a charge alleging that a senior Christchurch probation officer, Mr Ken Birss, leaked information to the “Truth” newspaper. Mr Birss has denied this and 10 other disciplinary charges laid against him in May, 1982, after stories about the Christchurch Probation Service were printed in “Truth.”

A committee comprising a Christchurch barrister, Mr Ralph Wylie (chairman), and the retired DirectorGeneral of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Reserach, Dr Edwin Robertson, has been set up to hear the charges. The hearing was set down for one week, but one counsel for Mr Birss, Mr Philip Hall, said it was likely to be adjourned today. Although the States Services Commission has applied to withdraw the key charge legal argument is continuing and no decision has been made.

Contrary to submissions made by another counsel for Mr Birss, Mr Edward Thomas, Q.C., of Wellington, the hearing is not open to the public. Such hearings are usually held in private, but Mr Thomas said that it was an exceptional case. It had become a public matter and should be treated as such.

Since the charges were laid against Mr Birss the matter had been accomeed by considerable puby under which Mr Birss had suffered. Mr Birss now took the attitude that if there was to be publicity, let it be accurate publicity, said Mr Thomas. He submitted that if the case had reached the point that Mr Birss would be exonerated it should be done in public. Counsel for the State Services Commission, Mr David Bradshaw, had indicated that the charges alleging that Mr Birss leaked information to “Truth” would not be proceeded with, Mr Thomas said. “This is the linchpin of the whole matter. My submission will be that without that incident these charges would not have eventuated.”

Mr Thomas also argued that as the hearing committee had been appointed under the State Services Act it was a “creature of that statute," bound by the statute and not by directives from the chairman of the State Services Commission that the hearing should be in private. Under the District Court

Act all civil proceedings must be open to the public and the grounds for excluding the public under the Summary Proceedings Act were extremely limited. Mr Bradshaw submitted that it was not unusual for commissions of inquiry to be directed about whether evidence should be heard in public. ■’ “As a matter of policy the commission does not deal with personnel matters in the media — that was the basis for the instruction that this hearing be in private.” If the charges against Mr Birss were proven he then had the right of appeal to the Public Service Appeal Board which would not be open to the public. Mr Bradshaw submitted that this was a clear statement that personnel matters should not be dealt with in public. After deliberating about half an hour the committee ruled that the public should be excluded from the hearing. Mr Wylie said that the hearing would involve evidence of a personal nature affecting other Probation Service employees. It was undesirable that there should be publicity at this level ’ of the inquiry when there could be no public access to any appeal. Although there was no specific statutory authority to exclude the public from civil hearings Mr Wylie said the District Court did have the jurisdiction to hear them in private. The other charges laid against Mr. Birss allege that he behaved in a manner calculated to cause unreasonable distress to other Probation Service employees, made allegations that a fellow officer had entered New Zealand illegally, failed to attend staff meetings regularly, made arrangements for supplies and services to be delivered to the address of the District Probation Officer, Mr D. D. Leech, and supplied information of a deliberately damaging nature. He was also charged 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 a lawful order. Nineteen months after the charges were laid Mr Birss was suspended from his job, but the Court of Appeal has recently ruled that the suspension was invalid. Mr Jack Lewin is also appearing for Mr Birss.