In May 2023 a police conduct report revealed a two-decade saga over a contracted medical officer who allegedly sexually assaulted recruits and conducted inappropriate intimate visual examinations. Now two of the multiple recruits who raised concerns about Dr Z as part of this investigation have spoken to the Herald. Their names have been changed due to permanent name suppression.
There was a brief gap in Linda’s consciousness after it happened.
She couldn’t remember leaving the medical practice a few blocks away only minutes earlier.
The jolt back to reality came on a central Wellington street.
“I remember stepping up onto a street and going ‘oh my god, [I think] he didn’t wear gloves’ and that’s the first thing I remember, and it was just like white noise walking down the road, it was just awful,” she claims.
“Just, ‘what the hell happened there?’ kind of thing.”
But despite the enduring blankness of the minutes just following it, the examination itself remains repulsively tangible.
It was the final hurdle in her path from a police cadet to a sworn officer - hopefully a formality for a healthy young woman.
“When I went and saw him, it was the stage where that was my last step. So I was all ready to go. Even had a date of when I was starting,” Linda says.
Her filled-out medical examination form from 2002 is incredibly threadbare.
A two-page document entitled Police Applicant Medical Examination is sparsely scribbled with phrases indicating good health: “nothing of note”, “nil”, “normal”, “not palpable”.
What is of note on the printed criteria is a box for the applicant’s weight, specifying it be measured in: “Kg (men stripped to waist / women in dressing gown)”.
Linda was allowed no such modesty and asked to strip down to her underwear.
“I had a G-string on and I said ‘I’m really uncomfortable, do you have any shorts or something I can put over?’ And he said, ‘no, no, no, we don’t have anything like that. Come on, don’t be silly’ kind of thing ... like I was holding him up.”
She protested that her pants were “stretchy” and would not hinder any movement.
“He stood behind me as I bent over, touched my toes, and I was holding there for a while. It was like ‘what are you doing there?’, it’s ridiculous.”
Afterwards, while she was still sitting in a bra and G-string, Dr Z briefed Linda that “unfortunately” a haemorrhoids test would be part of the examination.
Linda’s voice is filled with frustration and disbelief as she recalls the two-decade-old encounter still vivid in her mind.
“Then he asked me to get on the bed and drop my underwear and he performed a haemorrhoids test. I’d never had haemorrhoids, so I don’t know why I’m having a haemorrhoids test. Why the hell would you need to? He put his finger up me, and he told me to, I don’t know what you call it, tighten your bum. He touched my vagina.
“I wasn’t 100 per cent sure he wore gloves, because I don’t remember him using any gel or … I don’t remember him taking them off or on,” Linda claims.
There was no mention of a haemorrhoids test on her medical form.
In the 20-plus years since this examination, Linda is one of 14 police recruits who have been discovered to have had concerns or complaints about visual or penetrative examinations of the anus by Dr Z.
But it took a 2017 police criminal investigation of Dr Z and an internal review of police procedure, a 2020 Medical Council tribunal, a 2022 High Court case and a May 2023 Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report to bring this into the public realm.
The May 2023 report found police recruits had raised their concerns about Dr Z’s medicals at least seven times between 2002 and 2014/15 but “police had failed to act and continued to send recruits to the doctor”.
The Herald can reveal via an Official Information request that, since the May 2023 IPCA review was released, an additional former police recruit has come forward to police to report their concern over a historical medical examination at the hands of Dr Z.
Linda now wants a full internal investigation into the extent police knew of complaints about Dr Z - a more serious undertaking than the 2017 police review.
This week, a second letter has been drafted on behalf of a group of the aggrieved recruits intended for deputy commissioner Tania Kura, more than a year after the first letter. It outlines their ongoing grievances, and asks for a formal public apology from the Police Commissioner.
Above all, she is asking for acknowledgment that the police failed to act and placed further police recruits at risk by allowing the continuation of medical examinations by Dr Z.
The opening sentences condense Linda’s feelings now: “a complete lack of response from Police … of consequence” leaving her “bitterly disappointed”.
But the story of Dr Z is muddied by an otherwise unblemished career, and an extensive judicial process that saw him eventually cleared of all charges.
‘He just played God’
The Herald has also spoken with another police staffer, Evelyn, who was among the 14 male and female recruits who expressed concerns with medicals by Dr Z between April 1999 and March 2016.
The 2023 IPCA report determined Dr Z “conducted a visual and/or penetrative examination of their [the 14 recruits] anus or asked them to undress during their medical”.
Evelyn did not personally experience an invasive haemorrhoids test from Dr Z during her medical examination in 2000.
But she believes Dr Z got gratification out of the capricious treatment of those 14 recruits including herself.
“I’m so thankful that didn’t happen to me, but it could have easily happened to me,” Evelyn said.
“Speaking to people I’ve met through this investigation ... he just played God. Like with one person he wants to do whatever he wants with them, and with other people he’ll treat them differently. So it was very much that God complex, like ‘I’ll just do whatever I feel like with whoever, male and female’. Creep. Absolute creep.”
Evelyn said Dr Z made her take all her clothes off for the duration of the medical. She conceded there were some parts of the medical where it seemed reasonable for her to be so exposed, such as an examination that claimed to assess her bone structure.
“But then for things like, you know, doing the blood pressure and that knee reflex test? He wouldn’t let me put clothes on there, which is really bizarre. He was just really controlling,” she said.
Evelyn describes being scrutinised in her underwear as she bent down to touch her toes, to apparently make sure her “body was aligned”.
“I said, ‘all right well I’ll go put some clothes on now’ and he’s like ‘no, you can’t get dressed’.”
That same overbearing sense of this being the final hurdle to become a police officer was also at the forefront of Evelyn’s mind.
“I felt like I couldn’t leave or stop what was happening because he was the gatekeeper to the police. That was the last port of call before you go to college. So I just sort of felt like I had to put up with it.”
‘It never left me’
Linda attempted to raise the issue of the examination by Dr Z shortly after she had become a sworn officer in 2002 in a feedback form offered on the recruiting system.
“It never left me, and then I went into the college and there was a feedback-type thing you could do on your whole recruiting system process,” she said.
“So I wrote down most of that and I said ‘more than happy to talk further on this, here’s my number’ but no one ever got back to me about it. That went on for some years.”
There were also other moments early in her career that suggested her experience with Dr Z was not an isolated incident.
Rumours that his conduct was being investigated and addressed had allegedly been circulating in some corners of the police force.
Linda recalls a casual conversation in 2008 with an acquaintance in the force.
“We were talking about our experiences of going through as a recruit so I brought up what happened to me - because she was working in Wellington at the time. She said, ‘I’ve heard all about this, they’ve opened an investigation about him’.”
Linda says the abrupt news left her “over the moon” as it lifted the burden of having to personally fight for a further investigation.
Her expectation she would be contacted imminently was misplaced, however.
It was the last she ever heard of that rumoured investigation. “Nothing ever eventuated from that” is all she can offer.
Evelyn also said she sought out police human resources in Wellington after the incident to complain about her experiences with Dr Z. She spoke to two female HR staff - the second of whom wanted specific detail about the incident.
According to her, HR “sounded quite concerned” while they were taking notes and she fully expected them to do something about it. But she never heard back from them.
‘I’ve got to do something’
It might have been irritation at the perceived hypocrisy or a genuine inkling the institution she was part of was finally changing, but something Linda saw on the TV news spurred her to finally make a formal complaint.
Part of it, she admits, was guilt she hadn’t done more over all those years to protect other recruits from Dr Z.
It was now 2017 - 15 years on from her medical examination.
The news piece was on an initiative to shift the culture within the police force to make it easier for staff within a well-entrenched conformist culture to report harassment.
“I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something’. So many years, you know, most days I’d think about it. I just thought, ‘stuff it I’m just going to do it’. So I contacted someone who put me onto someone else. Then went from there basically.”
For the ensuing 15 years, police had continued to send police recruits to Dr Z despite the numerous concerns that had been raised internally.
Linda says because she was still working within police at the time, the avenues to make the 2017 complaint were easier.
A complaint by a second recruit closely followed Linda’s.
It set turning a series of investigations spanning five years across several regulatory entities, and a court case.
In response to Linda’s complaint, police undertook a criminal investigation of Dr Z.
Evelyn was one of the recruits contacted by a Christchurch detective in 2017, who allegedly stated a number of recruits had made complaints about indecent and sexual assault. He asked for a statement from Evelyn.
“I said to him, ‘look I raised it at the time, why has no one done anything about it?’ They couldn’t really answer me. I was really angry and gutted that other people had to go through that and worse simply because the police didn’t fucking do something about it when I told them. I was so angry. So I gave them my statement and helped with the investigation.”
Ultimately, the police investigation into Dr Z concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him but his conduct was referred to the medical council.
Medical Council of New Zealand chairman Dr Curtis Walker said police notified them of the investigation in 2017, and a Professional Conduct Committee was established in 2018 to investigate concerns about Dr Z.
In a somewhat technical set of procedural steps, the Professional Conduct Committee referred the concerns to the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (HPDT). It is the tribunal - not the Medical Council - that hears and determines disciplinary proceedings.
The Herald covered the seven-day November 2020 Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal involving Dr Z. He was charged with acting in breach of ethical obligations with multiple claims of rectal and or testicular examinations which weren’t necessary, were done in inappropriate circumstances, or for reasons that were poorly communicated.
Recruits who spoke during the hearing describe feeling: “violated, humiliated and actually quite powerless” and used “like a piece of meat”.
A man who had a significant number of medical examinations for work purposes claimed his assessment with the doctor was easily the most invasive he’d been through.
He told the hearing he was also asked to pull down his pants, lie on the bed and push like he needed to do a poo while the doctor examined him.
The person tasked with investigating the allegations within police told the hearing they contacted 52 current and former staff members regarding their consultations – 14 of whom gave answers that were “of concern”.
He said this led to a search warrant for the doctor’s practice regarding 18 patients.
In its December 2020 decision, the tribunal found 12 of the charges against Dr Z to be established. Seven of the other charges he had faced were dismissed.
The tribunal’s decision recorded
- Rectal examinations of two recruits, one of which included contact with the vaginal area
- Seven recruits who experienced “intimate visual examinations of the perineum area” with inadequate communication
- “Intimate visual examinations … [that were] inappropriate” of another three recruits wearing G-strings while Dr Z stood behind them.
The tribunal found the overall disciplinary charge against Dr Z proved, but not serious enough to warrant a sanction.
High Court ‘justification’
Dr Z was, according to those who knew him, a man who placed considerable stock in his reputation.
He was not happy with a Medical Tribunal censure, even if there was no practical penalty handed down. He appealed the decision in the High Court in March 2022.
The respondent, the Medical Council PPC, then opposed Dr Z’s appeal and also filed a cross appeal against the tribunal’s decision not to impose any penalty on him.
In the High Court judgment document, the PCC maintains Dr Z’s conduct amounted “to professional misconduct in that it constitutes malpractice or negligence in relation to [Dr Z’s] scope of practice” and that it was likely to bring “discredit to the [medical] Profession’.”
But Dr Z is also described as having an “unblemished career” and having “undertaken a variety of occupational medical assessments for employers and institutions”.
Judge Gendall’s judgment to Dr Z’s High Court appeal was, delivered on June 27, 2022. It upheld Dr Z’s appeals, quashed the Medical Tribunal’s liability finding and dismissed the PCC’s cross-appeal was dismissed.
Dr Z and the recruits were granted permanent name suppression in the High Court.
Harry Waalkens KC represented Dr Z in the 2022 High Court appeal and describes the case as the “most remarkable” in his more than 40 years of practice.
“I personally am absolutely convinced that there was nothing inappropriate that happened, but I’m not a witness in all of this,” Waalkens said.
“I’ve got completely no doubt that [Dr Z] was very unfairly criticised for this and the position he ended up in was the product of a whole lot of lapses that happened, including … [a police] investigation that actually fuelled concern.”
A further letter from Waalkens responded to a number of questions the Herald put to Dr Z.
The response on behalf of Dr Z takes aim at the processes of the initial 2017 police investigation.
“In one of the most appalling examples of the Police breaching the well-established principles of balanced investigation, they provided to each of the persons being called, information that breached principles of ‘suggestibility’,” the letter says, while citing passages in the Medical Tribunal decision that are claimed to support such suggestibility.
“The effects in contaminating memory in such circumstances is well established ... the Tribunal observed the Police had not conducted their investigation with ‘open questions’.”
Of the 12 recruits who gave evidence in the HPDT, the letter on behalf of Dr Z also says there was evidence of “considerable discussion between them about their shared experiences”.
When asked to comment on the two recruits spoken to by the Herald, still very much aggrieved by Dr Z’s examinations, the letter takes issue that neither of them have been identified to him.
“Given the examinations were all conducted on a proper and professional basis, these two, unnamed recruits have obviously been mistaken ... Throughout this entire process, [Dr Z] has been concerned to be told that some individuals have been aggrieved by the examination required of them by the Police. He has formally offered to provide an apology for any misunderstanding but this was not taken up by the PCC.”
The letter says it “beggars belief” that having found Dr Z was “acting in good faith”, that “the Tribunal could find any breach of professional standards, had they paid proper regard to the evidence heard”.
It also states Dr Z had been undertaking police recruit medical examinations for 22 years. Asked if Dr Z felt unfairly treated by police, the letter says he “most definitely” does not.
The Herald has spoken with a colleague of Dr Z at the time of the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal investigation.
The doctor maintained there were never any clinical care complaints from patients of Dr Z for the two years he worked with him before retiring.
Medical Council of NZ chairman Dr Walker confirmed Dr Z is not currently practising medicine.
A damning IPCA investigation
Despite the passage of time, the complaints against Dr Z gained momentum after Linda’s initial complaint to police in 2017.
Yet the focus on these grievances varied in the angle taken.
Amid the backdrop of the High Court appeal, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) was carrying out a separate investigation into the police’s failure to adequately respond to recruits’ complaints over a 15-year period.
Evelyn was integral to that IPCA investigation but like every aspect of her ordeal with Dr Z, she felt the police’s response was, at best, reluctant.
“I think I left it a couple of years but it was just there away in the back of my head,” Evelyn said.
In 2019, she finally made the first police recruit complaint to IPCA on the continued lack of action on the issue.
“When I made the complaint, they didn’t really initiate a proper investigation. They resolved it by speaking with someone at the police who apologised to me. They didn’t really look at the full extent of what was going on. They didn’t speak to anyone else.”
Evelyn claims it took a second recruit complaint to the IPCA from a male recruit to finally “trigger a proper investigation”.
The IPCA discovered recruits had raised their concerns about the doctor’s medicals at least seven times between 2002 and 2014/15.
“Police had failed to act and continued to send recruits to the doctor. It was not until a formal complaint was made in June 2017 that Police launched a criminal investigation. That investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge the doctor,” the IPCA reported in 2023.
It left Evelyn incensed.
“That’s what bugged me, that they [hadn’t] listened to me from the start ... I kind of knew that that would have happened: that more people would have been victimised from the lack of action or just burying their heads and the sand. I was really angry about how we were treated as recruits. There’s a real culture of you just don’t get listened to, you’re just a number and what you say doesn’t really matter.”
Yet instead of relief at finally being listened to by police, where she still worked, Evelyn felt ostracised within the force.
“When we had made the IPCA complaint and we had the investigation into the assaults happening, there was nothing [said] from the executive to us.
“We just felt like, you know, a dirty little secret. So it was very victim shaming in my opinion. There was no welfare for us.”
The IPCA investigation contacted 52 recruits as part of their investigation after identifying 118 who had medicals with Dr Z between April 1999 and March 2016.
“A mix of 14 males and females alleged Dr Z had conducted a visual and/or penetrative examination of their anus or asked them to undress during their medical. While there do not appear to have been any standardised guidelines setting out the precise requirement for recruit medicals, these types of examinations do not appear to have been common procedure among Police Medical Officers,” the report says.
“At least five recruits said they had raised concerns with different people in Police following their medicals, but nothing was done.”
The IPCA judged police “failed to act and, consequently, potentially put recruits at risk by continuing to send them to Dr Z”.
The IPCA found the criminal investigation of Dr Z in 2017 was of an acceptable standard, but a full investigation into the police’s earlier failure to respond should have been undertaken in 2017 when they “became aware of the extent of the complaints”.
“Police should have investigated the first complaint in 2002 and every subsequent complaint received,” said the report, which was signed off by Judge Kenneth Johnston KC, chairman of the IPCA.
“Police failed to act until the [IPCA] received a complaint in 2019. At this point they completed a review, rather than an investigation. This response was inadequate as it led to Police being unable to reach conclusions about how they had dealt with the recruits’ concerns.”
The IPCA report judged that criminal investigators had offered appropriate support to the recruits.
“However, the member of the Police Executive who knew about these allegations failed to acknowledge the concerns raised and to arrange any further support during the Police investigation and Medical Council process. They did not meet their obligations as an employer to the recruits as purported victims who were exposed to alleged sexual offending occasioned only because of their participation in the Police recruitment process,” it said.
This finding was handed down on May 24, 2023.
On that same day, Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura acknowledged in the press release that “this is clearly a situation in which Police’s high standards when dealing with historic[al] allegations of this kind have not been met”.
She admitted the “shortcomings in the response are particularly saddening”.
Police acknowledge failures in their obligations as an employer for the safety and wellbeing of their staff and recruits.
“It is important to note that both Police’s own criminal investigation, and a disciplinary investigation by the Medical Council’s Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, both found insufficient grounds to proceed with further action including criminal charges,” Kura said.
“Nevertheless, Police accept that the response to these historic allegations wasn’t sufficiently robust or timely given their seriousness, and that this was a reflection of systemic issues at the time.”
Kura said police had taken steps to ensure such a failure in response does not happen again.
The release states that the medical assessment to join the police was reviewed by occupational health specialists as fit for purpose. Applicants can be assessed by their personal GP or any trusted medical practitioner.
When asked to comment further on the enduring trauma of the two recruits whom the Herald has spoken to, and the fresh letter on behalf of recruits for an apology from the Police Commissioner and formal investigation into past failures, police simply redirected the questions back to the May 24 release.
Living within police in anonymity
When Evelyn and Linda mention they still work for the police, the words come with a sigh and a laugh.
Their belief in an unresolved wrong remains steadfast - but the energy to press back against it has waned.
Both former recruits know the bureaucratic might of the institution they have devoted their lives to.
Both feel the IPCA report was toothless, and the resulting media coverage at the time of its release in May 2023 a passing blip.
After the release, Evelyn discussed the possible avenues for filing a personal grievance claim with two other recruits she has remained connected with.
“I thought about getting a lawyer ... We thought about [seeking] compensation,” Evelyn said.
“I don’t even know how to go about that and it can be long-winded and tricky. And then, because we’re within the organisation, you know, it can make things hard for us.”
Linda was equally insecure and indecisive about the decision to file a personal grievance claim.
“I was going to go through with the personal grievance. I had 90 days after that report officially came out and I was like: I’ve just had enough, I’ve put myself through this for six years now,” Linda said.
“Fighting it plus all the other emotional stuff from 2002 and I just think I’m not gonna get anywhere. Because they will always win.”
The resentment towards the executive level of the police force is palpable in Evelyn.
“I am just really, really disappointed. I’ve got no trust whatsoever in the police as I call it - the executive, the ones at the top now who run the show? As far as I’m concerned, they’re self-serving, they’re on top dollar and they’re just protecting themselves. They don’t actually care about people on the ground doing the work. So, for me, I enjoy my job but you know, you’ve just got to do what you can to look after yourself. I’m not gonna be a disgruntled employee. But I’ve got no trust in the top brass.”
Linda’s enduring anger is perhaps even more intense.
“After 20 years of being with police, I have noticed how the organisation seems to have a culture of blame,” she wrote in her letter to deputy commissioner Tania Kura.
“Police seldom take mistakes on the chin as an organisation and perform a witch hunt of sorts to protect their name, quietly removing the ones at fault.
“The organisation should front up and acknowledge responsibility for this negligence - negligence that caused catastrophic outcomes. Twenty years later this matter still has an enormous negative effect on me personally.”
Tom Dillane is an Auckland-based journalist covering local government and crime as well as sports investigations. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is deputy head of news.