Cop's behaviour with informant 'reprehensible'

A judge has labelled as reprehensible the behaviour of a senior detective who had a sexual relationship with a police informant.

The female informant has failed in an attempt to sue the police officer.

She says Detective Sergeant Peter Govers should not have kept his job and now wants police to reopen their investigation following the judge's remarks.

Mr Govers, of Levin, was demoted to the rank of senior constable in 2007 after admitting disgraceful conduct, but is at present relieving for a detective.

The woman, whose name is suppressed, argued in a civil case that she had felt obliged to fulfil Mr Govers' sexual requests because of his position.

The woman had helped police spy on a methamphetamine ring in 2005. Shortly afterwards, Mr Govers took a bottle of wine to her home.

She said he told her he could help if she was in trouble, and that he knew her children were in care and her violent partner had just gone to jail.

The woman said he asked her to perform a sex act on him, but court documents show Mr Govers denies this took place.

Mr Govers admitted the pair also exchanged intimate text messages, but denied the woman sent him nude pictures of herself at his request.

Last week, in Wellington District Court, Judge Susan Thomas dismissed the woman's claim for damages, but found it "more likely than not" that her allegations were correct.

She said Mr Govers had exploited the woman's vulnerable situation and entered into a sexual relationship with her.

However, Judge Thomas found no legal basis to the claim that Mr Govers had breached a legal duty to the woman.

The woman said yesterday that it was a relief to be believed.

Despite losing the case, for which she said she had sought about $175,000 in damages, she would fight on. "I'm going to keep pushing it. I have suffered all these years."

Central District Commander Russell Gibson said there would be no further action against Mr Govers as a police investigation was completed in 2007.

He said Mr Govers had not been promoted, but was relieving in a detective's role.

The woman said she was appalled by that. "People want to go to the police in trust, but if someone goes to him, what is he going to do?"

Her lawyer, Mark Lillico, said the police investigation into Mr Govers' actions was completed only days before the damning report of Dame Margaret Bazley's Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, which found evidence of officers exploiting vulnerable people.

The report highlighted flaws in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse by police, and Mr Lillico said the internal investigation into Mr Govers' case suggested there were institutional problems within the police at that time.

He said the woman had been vulnerable and instead of getting support from police, had been forced into taking civil court action.

Mr Gibson said Mr Govers was dealt with according to the Police Regulations in place before the report saw a new code of conduct established.

Mr Govers refused to comment on the case to The Dominion Post but his lawyer, Susan Hughes, QC, said the judge's decision would help end a chapter in his life.

She said the claim that he had breached a duty of loyalty to the woman was "without merit".

"It would have been an enormous stretch of the law to see it apply to this scenario."

THE CLAIM

A female police informant argued that her relationship with Peter Govers was a "fiduciary relationship", meaning he had a legal duty to act in her interests. The woman said Mr Govers' sexual relationship with her breached that duty.

THE FINDINGS

Judge Susan Thomas said a fiduciary relationship could not exist between a police officer and an informant. This meant Mr Govers did not have special legal obligations to the woman which could be breached, and the claim was dismissed.

"That Mr Govers' behaviour, given his status, was reprehensible is in no doubt. He was not, however, acting in a fiduciary capacity and he had no obligation and therefore no liability in that regard.

"What this amounts to is Mr Govers taking advantage of the vulnerability of someone who had been an informant, who lived on the fringe of the criminal world, whose children were in the custody of Child, Youth and Family and who was in a volatile relationship with a criminal."

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