The recruit was just three days away from graduating when he was suspended. Photo / File
The recruit was just three days away from graduating when he was suspended. Photo / File
A police recruit wrongfully accused of groping a colleague was relegated to operating a traffic camera for several months while police investigated the allegations.
The recruit was just three days away from graduating from police college when he was accused of pushing a female recruit up against a wallwith his chest on her back, and brushing his hand across her bottom as she ascended a set of stairs.
He was suspended for 30 days, marched off campus and then sent to work as a traffic camera operator while police investigated the possibility of laying criminal charges, as well as an employment investigation.
However, criminal charges were not laid after two months and an employment investigation that concluded in March 2024 cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The recruit was suspended and then immediately told to leave the college. Photo / Supplied
The recruit then took a case to the Employment Relations Authority claiming police had not given him a chance to dispute his suspension, had not communicated that the criminal and employment investigations would be done one after the other rather than concurrently, and that they took an unreasonable amount of time to establish he had done nothing wrong.
In a recent ruling released by the authority, he has now been awarded $6000 in compensation because police failed to consult with him before suspending him, and failed to communicate about how the investigation would be handled.
The recruit said that the suspension made him feel blindsided, and that a meeting he was called to about his alleged behaviour was predetermined, and the consequences for himself and his family were not considered.
Further, he says, he was unable to graduate, had his reputation tarnished and was anxious that he would not be able to become a police officer at all.
The recruit also said that he was humiliated by being placed on restricted duties as a traffic camera operator.
By contrast, police maintained they did consider alternatives to suspension and were right to be cautious about what kinds of duties they could assign him, given the nature of the allegations.
Communication breakdown
Ultimately, authority member Rowan Anderson found that the recruit was unjustifiably disadvantaged in his employment because he was suspended without consultation, and police failed to communicate that the criminal and the employment investigations would not happen simultaneously.
Anderson said he was left in a position of uncertainty about his employment for longer than he had anticipated.
“The actions by police were not the actions of a fair and reasonable employer,” Anderson said.
“Such as there were procedural failures, they were not minor, and they did result in [the constable] being treated unfairly.”
Anderson, however, didn’t find that the investigations took an unreasonably long time, nor that relegating the man to a traffic camera was an unreasonable course of action.
He ordered police to pay him $6000 in compensation for the lack of clarity around the investigation timeline.
The recruit graduated from police college in April last year and is now a serving member of the constabulary.
Police acknowledged in a statement the authority’s ruling and will now take the time to consider any next steps.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
