The IPCA has criticised Wellington Police for the way they seized vehicles from people who had unpaid fines.
The IPCA has criticised Wellington Police for the way they seized vehicles from people who had unpaid fines.
A grandmother in her 80s was roused from her sleep in the early hours by police and made to stand outside her house, while a man with poor health was told by police to find his own way home when the car he was in was pulled over at 3am.
These searches, and another similar one, were conducted by Wellington police while seizing vehicles for unpaid fines and have now been found to be unlawful.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) investigated four complaints relating to Wellington Police and their practice of obtaining warrants to seize vehicles for unpaid fines in 2022 and 2023.
In a report released this week, the IPCA has upheld three of the complaints.
They arose after the commencement of “Operation Cobalt” in May 2022 - which sought to disrupt gang activity.
As part of the operation, police applied for warrants to seize property belonging to gang members with unpaid fines.
As it progressed, police worked with Ministry of Justice officials to streamline their processes. Officers would contact collections staff at the ministry to see if a targeted gang member or associate had any outstanding fines.
If there were unpaid fines, officers would request a warrant from the court to seize property with a bailiff present.
When a vehicle was seized, the person had seven days to repay the debt and retrieve the vehicle, or it was sold at auction.
The report notes that eventually the practice of obtaining warrants to seize property and vehicles became “business as usual”.
But the IPCA found problems with police practices.
The report said ideally, bailiffs would seize items with the assistance of police. Yet in all four cases, the warrants were exercised at night or in the early morning - outside a bailiff’s working hours - so bailiffs weren’t present.
But it found no evidence that police intentionally arranged to execute search warrants when bailiffs were unavailable.
The IPCA has found three vehicle seizures were unlawful, while a fourth was lawful.
The report also said the current memorandum of understanding (MOU) between police and the ministry explicitly states, “In accordance with this protocol, Police will only seize cash, not other property.”
Operation Cobalt also required more than $5000 in outstanding fines before a warrant was issued. The IPCA found that while one of the complainants had $5000 in outstanding fines, the rest owed amounts below that.
Lawyer Chris Nicholls, who laid two of the four complaints, said he was told the practice had stopped, and would be concerned if it was to start again.
“The collection of fines should be left with bailiffs. They wear body cameras, there’s no argument about what happened and there’s far less abuse of power given the presence of body cameras,” he said.
Bailiffs also carried out their work during work hours and were appropriately trained, he said.
In a statement, police acknowledge the IPCA report’s findings. It said that in March last year, police updated instructions and officers are required to have Ministry of Justice bailiffs present at the search, unless there is urgency and or good reason to execute the warrant as part of a major event operation or criminal investigation.
Police have also begun negotiations to update the MOU with the Ministry of Justice.
The four complaints
In the first case, police stopped and breath tested a group of Head Hunters members on their motorcycles heading to Wellington one evening. One of the motorcycles was seized after one of the members was found to owe $1300 in fines.
In the second case, police seized a car in which a woman and her son were sitting whilst it was parked in a driveway. The car belonged to the woman’s partner, who had $5000 in unpaid fines. Despite phoning her lawyer while she was sitting in the car, the woman was unable to stop the car’s seizure.
In the third case, police were searching for a woman suspected of stealing petrol from a service station. Wanting to prevent the woman from reoffending again that night, a police officer took a warrant for $2500 in unpaid fines to her bail address, but neither the woman nor her car were there.
Believing the woman was staying with her partner, who was living at his grandmother’s house, the officer went to that address.
At 1.30am, the woman wasn’t there but her car was. The police knocked on the door, waking the grandmother, who woke her grandson. When the man refused to provide the car key, the officer called reinforcements, searching the house and property, while the woman’s partner and his 82-year-old grandmother waited outside. When the key was eventually found, the car was towed.
Finally, the fourth case involved a man who was unable to drive because of poor health and was unlicensed.
Instead, he registered his car in the name of a young man who held a learner’s licence and often drove him around.
The officer knew the young man as he had previously issued him with numerous infringement notices for breaching his licence conditions.
When he pulled the car over at 3am, assuming the young man was driving and again breaching his licence conditions, it was another person behind the wheel and the older man was present.
A warrant was issued for about $4000 of enforceable fines that the young man, who was not present, had outstanding, and the car was seized.
The older man told the police officer he felt unwell, but the officer left him and the driver on the side of the road, expecting them to make their own way home.
Lack of understanding in each case
The IPCA found in each case that the officers lacked understanding of what was required when issuing a search warrant.
While it ruled in the first case that police reasonably exercised the warrant lawfully, in the second, third and fourth cases, it found police had not because officers didn’t demand payment, a legal requirement.
In the third case, it also found it was unreasonable for police to execute a search during the early hours of the morning and police acted outside their warrant when they searched the house and property looking for the car key.
The IPCA found police did not always;
Produce the warrant at the start of the process. In two cases, police told the complainant they were seizing the vehicle about 10 minutes before they had the warrant. The IPCA said where possible, officers should have the warrant before telling the person that their property or vehicle will be seized.
Produce the warrant in a manner that can be seen by the person reading it. In each case, the warrants were produced in digital form, but some complained they were unable to read them on the officers’ phones.
Demand payment; or
Consider immobilising the vehicle rather than seizing it.
The authority also ruled in most circumstances, it is unreasonable to execute a search warrant for unpaid fines at someone’s house in the early hours of the morning.
It said that if the police were to execute search warrants as part of major operations or criminal investigations, they should train staff to execute warrants by the law.
Police subsequently issued a memorandum to all staff, that officers must be accompanied by a bailiff when executing search warrants to seize property.
It also suggested that police establish a fines threshold to help officers determine if a warrant is worth pursuing.
Finally, the report notes police are working with the Ministry of Justice on updating their MOU to ensure it accurately reflects police practice regarding the execution of warrants to seize property.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
