The rise and fall of a police chief

By PHIL TAYLOR

John Buchanan Dewar is a man with drive and ambition, someone for whom success and being recognised as successful are important.

He has always had the appearance of a man who means business. Well-groomed, dressed to look the part, he was perhaps the only policeman who drove to work in a Rolls-Royce.

It turned heads when he was a senior sergeant in Auckland and would surely have been the topic of conversation in Rotorua in December 1987 when he drove up in his cream and brown Roller to take the job of second-in-command of the city's Criminal Investigation Bureau.

Almost everyone in the police has heard about the Rolls-Royce and how it was supposedly a present from the parents of his first wife for rescuing - some say taking - her from the clutches of religious sect the Moonies, in the United States.

Rotorua was very good, at first, to Mr Dewar. But by the time he was forced to leave at the end of 1995 his police career was as good as over.

He rose to the rank of detective inspector in the sulphur city, became the top detective commanding the CIB and was also put in charge of its armed offenders squad.

He was a go-getter, someone with energy, a decision-maker, who some say saw black and white but was blind to shades between.

Mr Dewar provided the Weekend Herald with copies of his performance appraisals for the years of 1992/1993 and 1993/1994. They are glowing, the total points score giving him a rating of outstanding.

The latter records his projected career path as a district commander or area controller. The same report notes he had implemented improved investigative techniques in the Rotorua CIB.

But within two years his police career was in tatters. Mr Dewar has not provided copies of his performance appraisal for those troubled years.

In December 1995 he was transferred - despite claiming he would fight it in court - to a desk job as an inspector in the Auckland control room.

He was given a notice telling him the reasons included the fact that his commander, the late Trevor Beatson, Rotorua's Crown Solicitor and some judges had lost confidence in him.

Former Deputy Commissioner Barry Matthews made the decision. Now Western Australia's police commissioner, Mr Matthews this week said such was the division among Rotorua police Mr Dewar had to go.

He had been found guilty by a police disciplinary tribunal of making a sexist and improper remark to a woman police officer - asking whether her late release from the investigation hunting Auckland serial rapist Joe Thompson was because she was "bonking" the boss - and was the subject of at least three inquiries by the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) or the police commissioner.

"The issue was the division of the [police] station. There was a clear split. Some were unhappy working for Dewar and some supported him," Mr Matthews said. "The whole thing was just unsatisfactory and couldn't be allowed to continue."

Mr Matthews said he understood Mr Dewar resigned from the police after his transfer.

Despite his performance appraisal complimenting his investigative ability, an internal inquiry into an investigation he botched was severely critical of the detective inspector's skills in this area.

The inquiry was called Operation River II and was initiated by the police commissioner. The bungled case - which alleged a police officer had sex with a woman on minor charges in exchange for diversion - resulted in a substantial payout by the police under threat of being sued for malicious prosecution.

The internal inquiry found Mr Dewar's investigation to be "superficial and professionally inept" and recommended his "apparent investigative inadequacies ... be brought to his attention by a superior officer and any appropriate action be taken".

At the same time Rex Miller, who was a detective chief inspector, was heading a PCA inquiry into the mishandling of another case by Mr Dewar against another police officer.

Mr Miller's team also investigated for the PCA how Mr Dewar handled a complaint by Louise Nicholas that she was pack-raped in Rotorua in 1986 by three policemen (Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards, Tauranga District councillor and bar-owner Brad Shipton and Hastings car salesman Bob Schollum).

Mr Miller was critical of Mr Dewar for not taking a written record of Mrs Nicholas' complaint and accused him of interfering with his PCA inquiry by manipulating her.

He also said Mr Dewar should have disqualified himself from the investigation because the allegations were against his colleagues. Mr Dewar rejects these criticisms.

Peter Williams, QC, who with Chris Reid defended the police officer accused of using his position to get illicit sex, said he believed the case contributed to the early death of his client, although it was thrown out of court. The matter was bitter, drawn-out and humiliating.

The man died of a heart attack two years after he was charged by Mr Dewar but lived to see the Operation River II report which savaged Mr Dewar's handling of the case and said proper investigation would have established there was insufficient admissible evidence to warrant charges.

Brian Pearce, a retired detective inspector from Christchurch who headed Operation River II, said the accused's passport proved he was in Australia at the time of the alleged sex offence - "This was a fundamental flaw".

His report shows the case collapsed spectacularly when it emerged Mr Dewar had relied almost entirely on the complainant's three statements in charging the man and that he approached the complainant, leaving him open to a claim he solicited the complaint.

The trial went ahead despite the woman telling police days before that she was not coerced into having sex.

It didn't last long. Justice David Morris threw it out, commenting: "How can we be sure which horse the lady is riding today?"

Mr Williams and Mr Reid told the police their client would sue for malicious prosecution, alleging Mr Dewar was driven by "bad blood" between the two men.

The police agreed on a confidential out-of-court settlement. But the Weekend Herald has learned the sum was halved and paid to the man's wife after he died.

Mr Williams: "We were very impressed with [our client] as a person. He was a very sincere man who was well liked by the police and the community.

"The stress ... was tremendous and he died soon after."

The man's widow is adamant stress was a prime factor in her husband's death.

"He [Dewar] didn't pull the trigger but he might as well have," she said.

During this period of turmoil, Mr Dewar had his fans. The most vocal was Ross Meurant, an MP at the time, who alleged under parliamentary privilege that Mr Dewar was no more than the victim of a vendetta.

Mr Meurant is a friend of Mr Dewar, who was the law and order spokesman for Mr Meurant's New Zealand Conservative Party at the time.

Mr Dewar's enemies weren't silent, either, although it appears they didn't feel it would be good for their careers to to be named. They called him "Teflon" and didn't believe Mr Miller's PCA inquiry would get anywhere.

Mr Dewar, who was hired as human relations manager about two years by the Midlands region (Waikato) of St John Ambulance, has become a controversial figure there.

There has been a huge clean-out of staff since his arrival. St John Ambulance has become a regular fixture on Employment Court lists. Many feel aggrieved and anonymous claims are again circulating. Depending on the point of view, he is either wreaking havoc or pulling a staid organisation up by the bootstraps.

An officer who did not want to be named believes it is the latter and says Mr Dewar is doing a good job.

Mr Dewar is not talking publicly, citing legal advice. But he gave some media documents he said was a paper trail proving he had properly and competently investigated Mrs Nicholas' pack rape and baton claim.

The documents concern a complaint Mrs Nicholas made about alleged crimes at an earlier time, in a different town and involving different people.

The Weekend Herald believes they do not and cannot relate to the Rotorua claim, as he told a reporter they did.

We contacted Mr Dewar to discuss this last Monday night but the line went dead. We then went to his house but found it in darkness.

Mr Dewar, who has twice married into wealthy families, lives on a picture-perfect lifestyle property on the outskirts of Hamilton.

It is an image of tranquil living, exactly what his professional life has not been for years.

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