Abuse scandal cop promoted

The police officer at the centre of the Wairarapa child-abuse scandal who incorrectly claimed that dozens of files had been resolved has since been promoted to one of Auckland's top jobs.
The final report of the Independent Police Conduct Authority identified Detective Sergeant Mark McHattie as a key figure in the matter.
Then head of Masterton CIB, Mr McHattie sent an email to two of his superiors, including Wairarapa Area Commander John Johnston, saying "hand on heart" that the backlog had been dealt with.
That claim was believed by Mr McHattie's superiors, who took at face value his assertion that a collection of 142 child-abuse files had been reduced to just 29 in three months.
However the claim was subsequently proved incorrect, with 33 files found to be "filed incorrectly" or "inappropriately resolved".
Since then Detective Sergeant McHattie had been promoted to detective senior sergeant and now heads the serious crime squad of Auckland Central CIB.
A police spokeswoman said Mr McHattie was appointed in March 2008 to the role after it was advertised nationally.
"His promotion on merit to detective senior sergeant roles in Auckland District was prior to the commencement of an employment investigation in July 2009.
"If the detective senior sergeant is found to have committed misconduct relating to actions while in the Wairarapa, then any sanctions would apply regardless of the position and rank he [now] occupies."
She said 10 employee code of conduct investigations had been completed since Operation Hope and Operation Scope, and eight were still being investigated.
The Times-Age has also learned that Mr McHattie has been or is about to be the subject of a police "employment outcome" relating to his failure to follow up on a serious allegation put to him by a Masterton man in 2004.
That failure has sparked a formal police apology to the complainant, signed off by Senior Sergeant Matt Morris of the police professional standards team.
Meanwhile the former sergeant in charge of South Wairarapa police from 1994-2001, said the problem of large workloads was not new.
Kevin Tunnell said backlogs in abuse cases went back to the 1980s, well before the revelations of 2008.
"There's nothing new about this. From 1988 onwards there was a sustained effort to bring it out and have the reports done. But it opened a huge can of worms that continued to grow.
"Then in 1999-2000 a request was made for an extra detective for the very reason [of a file backlog] ... and it never happened. The problem of the 2000s is more of a problem about police headquarters in Wellington not providing adequate staff to deal with the cases."
He said every agency involved, from CYFS to the families of some of the abuse victims themselves, should share the blame.
"This is also a failure of school teachers, a failure of parents, a failure of priests ... It annoys me when the finger is solely pointed at police."
He said he remembered having to wait up to three months to get access to trained staff capable of interviewing children.
Mr Tunnell, who took early retirement from the police in 2001, said he would be "very surprised" if other districts around the country had not been in a similar situation to Wairarapa in 2006.
Read earlier story - 113 child abuse cases 'vanish'