Top copper on counter-terrorism beat

By ANGELA GREGORY

Auckland's police chief will help bring New Zealand up to speed on counter-terrorism with a six-month stint with the Home Office in Britain.

Superintendent Howard Broad is shortly heading to London to study British policing, including anti-terrorism tactics.

Mr Broad said terrorism had become a global issue and New Zealand had to catch up.

"Obviously, we are concerned about the possibility of terrorism being planned here," he said.

Mr Broad said vigilance was important and New Zealand police benefited from a generally good relationship with the community.

A mistake made by French intelligence in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior ship at Auckland showed a complete misunderstanding of the involvement of New Zealand citizens with the police, he said.

"We're a pretty willing lot once a crime has occurred ... police have a pretty good relationship with the individual citizen.

"In some countries police are loathed and you wouldn't want to go near them."

Mr Broad said police forces in both countries faced similar problems, such as how to best work with multiracial communities, and designing new management and training techniques.

He said a good part of his visit would be about making contacts, as police forces overseas were increasingly international in scope.

But Mr Broad said some New Zealand initiatives were also being looked at in Britain.

Tackling youth offending through things like family group conferences, in which the police played a critical part, was of interest there.

The New Zealand police were typically the people who referred a case to a youth justice co-ordinator and often sat in on the conference.

Mr Broad said police were also building community infrastructures as an alternative to bureaucratic and impersonal forms of youth corrective training.