The Commissioner and the Constable

Urbane top cop Peter Doone's career ended on a wet election night in Wellington - November 27, 1999.

Constable Brett Main, 32, had started work at 4pm.

Their paths crossed about 9.15pm, soon after the police commissioner had collected Chinese takeaways at a favourite restaurant.

Mr Main had graduated from Police College just three days before. The former salesman and outdoor education instructor is a quiet young man. His course reports say he was conscientious, ready to listen, not overly confident. He teamed up with Constable Mark Haldane, just two years older but with 5 1/2 years in the force.

Mr Main was driving the patrol car as they headed down Taranaki St towards the harbour.

They saw a car without headlights turning right into Inglewood Place, a small thoroughfare that goes through to Dixon St. They followed it, siren on and lights flashing.

In the passenger seat was their silver-haired boss, who had been the country's top policeman for 3 1/2 years.

Through station tittle-tattle, they would have known of the woman next to him: Robyn Johnstone. Only five months earlier, Mr Doone had pleaded for his privacy to be respected when he left his wife and family to move in with his new love, who had been PR woman for the Land Transport Safety Authority.

Earlier on election night, about 5.30pm, she drove to the overseas passenger terminal to join her partner at a function for the EDS yacht race, which he had been at for several hours. She had two or three glasses of wine and they did a fair bit of dancing.

When they left, they decided to get takeaways in Courtenay Place. As they left, she saw the flashing lights of the patrol car behind her and pulled over.

Mr Main got out but leaned back into the car to get the "sniffer" breath-testing device to approach the driver.

A lot of the detail of what happened next is disputed.

Mr Doone told investigators he got out of the car to speak to the patrol "as an instinctive and routine action by me as commissioner". He believed it was a routine check and did not see the sniffer.

According to the investigating report, Mr Main says he told the passenger he wantedto speak to the driver and then realised that he was talking to the boss. Mr Doone toldhim that he was out having dinner.

"Constable Main states that the commissioner then spoke again, saying, 'We'll be on our way' or something to that effect," the report says.

Mr Main told the investigators he felt intimidated by the presence of the commissioner - not that Mr Doone had deliberately intimidated him but that was how he felt.

The constable breached standard procedure in not approaching Robyn Johnstone. Peter Doone was found to have acted inappropriately and paid the price.