Police 'let child abuse victims down'

BY TANYA KATTERNS

Wairarapa's top police officer and a senior detective are facing possible disciplinary action over the mishandling of child abuse files.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority, in an interim report on its investigation into backlogged files, has identified failures in the management of child abuse investigations.

In the Wairarapa, 108 cases were unallocated, files were uninvestigated on average for five years and, in some cases, victims lived with their alleged abusers all that time.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad said yesterday that police had let the victims down, and vowed to urgently overhaul the way cases were handled, saying police were working through the IPCA's recommendations.

"I don't want people to think our system is broken when it's not. We have a desire to do our absolute best for at-risk children."

The IPCA found there was also a backlog of child abuse cases in Rotorua and Westport.

The authority is continuing to investigate what went wrong in Wairarapa. The region's area commander, Inspector John Johnston, has confirmed that he is under investigation.

The Dominion Post has been told that a former Wairarapa CIB supervisor, Detective Senior Sergeant Mark McHattie, is also under investigation by Wellington police. Mr McHattie is now the head of the organised crime squad in Auckland.

The investigation was not about criminal negligence but about whether there was a lack of leadership and management, acting Wellington District Commander Gail Gibson said last year. She would not comment on the investigation yesterday.

The IPCA report comes three years after Wairarapa detectives Mana Faraimo and Sue Mackle pleaded with supervisors for help to deal with the backlog of cases. Ms Mackle was Wairarapa's sole child abuse investigator.

Talking of his dismay at the state of the CIB office and of Ms Mackle's workload, Mr Faraimo wrote: "I believe there are reasonable grounds for a personal grievance against the police for how she is being treated, ie realistically she has no chance of even personally resolving even 80 per cent of her file load."

Ms Mackle's email raised fears for the safety of victims. "Most of my inquiry files have named offenders, some of whom are probably still abusing victims, but I am resigned to the fact that that's just the way it is."

Wellington-based child abuse investigator Detective Sergeant Tusha Penny was sent to review unallocated files in the Masterton office in June 2006.

She wrote to police district managers: "It is the author's opinion that 121 active files for any individual investigator is excessive and unmanageable."

She recommended that Ms Mackle's file load be reduced and that an internal operation begin to deal with the uninvestigated files.

Two months later, the supervisor of Wairarapa CIB assured police managers that the problems had been addressed, and there were just five unallocated files.

The internal operation suggested was never held, as a result of his assurances.

IPCA chairwoman Justice Lowell Goddard said specific service failures would be the focus of the inquiry. The findings were expected at the end of the year.

REPORT REACTION

Police Minister Judith Collins said the report detailed "a very sad story" and nothing could excuse the way cases were handled in Wairarapa.

Children's Commissioner John Angus said police needed to invest significant energy into addressing "systemic problems" in the way child abuse cases are managed.

Dr Angus welcomed the report, saying it identified "some systemic problems that needed to be addressed".

"I think that it definitely was a failure in their systems - a failure by the police in some districts to give priority and weight to following up on child abuse cases in the way they should have."

Dr Angus said police needed to "put a lot of energy into remedying the deficiencies that have been found in this report, and strengthening the weaknesses across their systems that led to these situations continuing for quite a long period of time in places like the Wairarapa".

It was encouraging that police had already strengthened their protocols for working with Child, Youth and Family to ensure that care and protection needs of children were being met, he said.

"The most important response is to make sure that the children who have been abused or neglected, or are likely to have been, are in fact safe and secure, and that they stay safe and secure."

Police needed to prioritise the identification of abusers, and to hold them to account through prosecution or other action, Dr Angus said.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday expressed confidence police would follow up the IPCA recommendations.

"It's important that they do. This is about the safety and security of young New Zealanders and that's critically important," he said.

Whether or not more resources would be needed for police to do that was not clear, Mr Key said.

"I'm not sure I can answer that and it's really an operational question for the police, but I'm sure that if they think they do then they'll make that clear to the minister."

The report has been welcomed by child welfare advocacy groups.

Unicef NZ executive director Dennis McKinlay said there was no room for less than optimal response where suspected child abuse was concerned.

"It is simply not acceptable that harm to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens did not get the attention and concern it deserves, as shown in the IPCA report. Children's right to safety and protection depends on informed adults speaking out and managing their responsibilities properly," Mr McKinlay said.

"For files to be ignored, lost or inadequately followed up is disgraceful. We are also very concerned that many police were found to be inadequately trained to take care of the needs of the young victims."

Barnados chief executive Murray Edridge said the IPCA had identified "some useful recommendations".

"But at the end of the day we've got to be careful we don't miss the central issue here, which is that child abuse continues to happen in unacceptable numbers," he said.

"It's good for the police to be reflecting on how they treat the cases they get alerted to, but the frequency and the severity of the cases we're seeing just continues ... We're not getting it right with families and we're not getting it right with educating and supporting parents."

He welcomed a recommendation to put specialist staff into dealing with cases of abuse.

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The police's National Intelligence Application (NIA), its core operating system, is deficient and unreliable. While the system shows the Bay of Plenty to be holding 2450 files, of which 393 are child abuse files, a physical count reveals the district holds 3088 files, of which 507 are child abuse files.

In 2006, a detective in the Wairarapa is found to hold 121 files, some dating back to 2002. There are found to be systemic failings in managing child abuse files in the district.

In 2009, a box of 25 files is found in a Rotorua detective's office. Most had not been entered in NIA and some are dated back to 2004.

A detective constable leaves Westport CIB , and a review finds numerous files locked in cupboards, including four historic child abuse files which had not been progressed.

In Northland, child abuse investigation was under resourced. Staff were often required to attend to other jobs, including helping to meet road-policing targets.

The inquiry recommends police get training in how to use NIA. Police should no longer be allowed to enter child abuse into the system under generic codes.

Police have no stand-alone statutory definition of child abuse. Justice Goddard says it would benefit them to establish and use a consistent definition.

A limit should be set on the number of child abuse files an investigator can hold.

Each district is to review its structures for investigating child abuse and an audit system is to be established. The inquiry found it "striking" that the failings were not discovered in any routine process.

Click here to view extracts of whistle-blower emails to police bosses (PDF).

Click here for full Independent Police Conduct Authority report (PDF).

- with NZPA

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