Journalist loses job in rank and file dispute

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

A Whakatane journalist and former ministerial press officer accused of exaggerating his military rank and of taking bribes to suppress court news has lost his job.

Dave Warner, aged 62, left the Whakatane Beacon last week after 12 years there as a reporter but said he hoped to have a trademark column resurrected tomorrow in the rival Eastern Bay News.

This follows the Employment Relations Authority's rejection of challenges to his dismissal for embellishing his military past and to an earlier final written warning over suspicions of taking bribes.

Warner admitted telling Whakatane Mayor Colin Hammond that he served as an Army lieutenant, even though he did not rise above the rank of signalman private.

The 1996 community newspaper journalist of the year and former press secretary to Muldoon-era Transport Minister Colin McLachlan denied taking bribes to keep defendants' names off the Beacon's court page.

Yesterday, he said he was at a loss to explain why he exaggerated his rank, but that it was in response to being asked at short notice to deliver an Anzac address in place of a retired general, who was ill.

Employment Relations Authority member James Wilson quoted evidence of Beacon managing director John Spring that Warner lacked integrity or credibility and that each of these attributes was a fundamental requirement of a senior reporter.

The publisher told the authority, at a hearing last month, that it was sad enough that Warner had destroyed his career, but that he should not be allowed to carry on and "destroy a fine newspaper". Mr Wilson said the employer was entitled to find that his credibility was "fatally undermined".

He accepted it was possible "on pedantic scrutiny" to say that Mr Spring's investigation into bribery allegations was not procedurally perfect.

The reporter denied knowing a man who claimed to have given him $200 seven years ago to keep a defendant's name out of the court news. Mr Wilson said the employer should perhaps have made further inquiries.

Another investigation of bribery allegations raised by the Beacon's chief reporter, Keith Melville, ended when Mr Spring decided these were hearsay.

Mr Wilson found the issuing of a final warning over the later accusation was fair and reasonable.