A 'small number' of police officers who either falsely or erroneously recorded alcohol breath tests have been stood down for additional misconduct. Photo / Duncan Brown
By Sam Sherwood of RNZ
A “small number” of police officers who either falsely or erroneously recorded alcohol breath tests have been stood down for additional misconduct – but police won’t say what that misconduct was.
Their investigation has also found some staff have committed serious misconduct, however none of the cases were considered to be criminal offending.
RNZ earlier revealed about 120 staff were under investigation throughout the country after 30,000 alcohol breath tests were “falsely or erroneously recorded”.
The results were only discovered after police built a new algorithm to analyse the data, as the devices themselves could not distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate tests.
Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers earlier this month said none of the staff had been stood down, and did not rule out criminal investigations.
This week Assistant Commissioner Mike Johnson told RNZ police had progressed disciplinary processes for 130 staff members.
“Outcomes of the process vary between a finding of misconduct or serious misconduct depending on the particular circumstances.
“A case is more likely to be serious misconduct where the misconduct was repeated a number of times, or the officer involved was of more senior rank.”
Johnson said no employees have been stood down for this matter alone.
“There has been a small number of employees stood down for additional misconduct issues.”
RNZ asked police if they could be more specific about the number of staff stood down, what sort of additional misconduct was involved and what rationale staff had given for their behaviour.
Police replied: “We will not be supplying these further details as we do not want to risk identifying individuals who are engaged in an active employment process.”
In relation to what was happening to the staff who committed serious misconduct, Johnson said that was an employment matter and would most likely be a “formal warning of varying lengths, starting from six months”.
Johnson said none of the cases were considered to be criminal.
Johnson said a third had already been “addressed and closed”. Those cases were managed as “misconduct/employment conversation” with a mix of outcomes, he said.
The remainder were ongoing.
“In most cases the officers have accepted the warning and have acknowledged their behaviour as unacceptable.
“For all employees clear expectations from the organisation have been set through organisation wide messaging and updated refresher training specifically on this topic.”
After RNZ’s coverage every police officer across the country was ordered to do an online training module for alcohol breath testing.
Johnson said more than 70% of staff had completed their “refresher training”.
A memo sent to staff on November 5 said the “recent discovery” of breath tests being falsely recorded by some staff across the country had “led to trust and confidence impacts for police, including with our partner agencies”.
“Police is committed to restoring that trust and confidence.
“As part of our assurance response, the police executive has made the decision to require all constabulary staff to complete a mandatory online training module for alcohol breath testing. This is especially timely as we head into the summer surge period.”
The module must be completed by December 4.
The Defence Lawyers Association earlier said the revelations called into question the integrity of their current and past work, including prosecutions they’ve been involved in.
Te Matakahi Defence Lawyers Association New Zealand co-chair Elizabeth Hall said there needed to be a criminal investigation launched following the “unprecedented” revelations and support a “full, independent audit” of historical data.
Rogers earlier told RNZ how the tests were being falsely recorded.
“What these staff have done is, either at the start of the shift or during the shift, at the end of the shift, they’ve clicked the device that they’re all issued with more times than have actually seen them interacting with a motorist.”
The tests were done while the officers were in moving cars, which allowed the algorithm to pick up the numbers “outside the normal parameters”.
Rogers said she did not know who the staff were working with, but said there were some work groups that had more than one staff member represented in the figures.
“A higher number of people have been identified who are in our dedicated road policing teams. And that’s the disappointing thing. You know, we’ve done 4.2 million legitimate tests. We had the lowest number of alcohol related deaths on our roads last year. So I’m baffled why they felt the need to clip the ticket.”
Asked what reason there would be for falsifying tests, other than meeting targets, Rogers said police were working to identify the rationale and said it may be that staff “exceeded the numbers that they’ve legitimately done for reasons of making it look like they’re doing work that they haven’t done”.
- RNZ