Ex-North cop loses court fight

An ex-North cop has lost the fight against a former employer.

The Employment Court has dismissed an application for a re-hearing by a former Northland police constable who has been embroiled in a protracted legal battle with his ex-employer.

Stephen Davis has been ordered by that court to pay nearly $19,000 to the Police Commissioner on top of $115,000 in costs he was earlier instructed to pay.

Mr Davis, formerly based at Mangonui and Kaeo, took the Police Commissioner to the Employment Relations Authority then to the Employment Court, claiming he was unjustifiably disadvantaged. Both cases were unsuccessful. He now works at Christchurch Police Station.

He applied to the Employment Court for a re-hearing, claiming the court was biased in its decision, it failed to consider relevant evidence and statement, and disparities in the evidence of the Police Commissioner were ignored by Judge Mark Perkins.

Mr Davis also complained at what he described as a "crippling cost decision".

In a recently released judgment, Judge Anthony Ford said traditionally re-hearings had been ordered when the integrity of a judgment had been placed in issue by some special and unusual circumstances.

The re-hearing jurisdiction was not to be exercised for the purpose of re-agitating arguments already considered by the court or to provide a backdoor method by which unsuccessful litigants could seek to re-argue their case, he said.

Judge Ford said he was not satisfied with Mr Davis' argument for a re-hearing.

In 2010, senior management at police headquarters in Wellington moved Mr Davis from Northland, after he made serious allegations against senior officers in the region and wrote to the minister. In Christchurch, he complained to his senior sergeant that his supervising sergeant discriminated against him.