One of the high-ranking police officers under fire for his role in the Jevon McSkimming case was put under employment investigation just before he could officially retire.
Given his looming exit, it’s unclear what consequences there could be for the officer from the employment probe if any adverse findings were made against him.
Formerly the second most powerful cop in the country, McSkimming pleaded guilty last week to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material on his work devices, which was found during an investigation into his conduct with a younger staff member.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) released a damning report on Tuesday of how police handled complaints the staff member made against McSkimming, revealing they had chosen to prosecute the woman for her accusations before even investigating if they were true.
The report recommended a host of changes in high levels of New Zealand Police, as well as three employment investigations for staff involved in the case.
Commissioner Richard Chambers this week confirmed three staff members are being investigated for their parts in what he believed amounted to a cover-up.
“They remain in their roles while these investigations are underway,” Chambers said in separate a statement to Herald.
An independent King’s Counsel has been appointed to carry out the investigations.
“While there are clearly questions to be asked of those who had knowledge or information of concerning behaviour and decisions at the time, it is important to allow the independent King’s Counsel to conduct the employment process without prejudice,” Chambers said.
The authority - in the public version of this week’s report - refers to the trio it recommended be investigated as “Assistant Commissioner A”, “Officer B” and “Ms G”.
The Herald understands the three staff are Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham, Detective Superintendent Chris Page, and Angela Brazier, the executive director of the Firearms Safety Authority.
Basham, referred to as Assistant Commissioner A in the public version of IPCA’s report, announced his retirement and stopped working in September. But it is understood he is still officially employed in his role until early next year while he uses up his entitled leave.
This is how the IPCA described the trio’s actions.
Basham, then-the Assistant Commissioner of Investigations, is undergoing employment action after the IPCA found he had prematurely closed down the inquiry into whether there could be any truth to emailed allegations against McSkimming by a woman referred to as Ms Z.
According to the IPCA’s report, Basham directed Page, referred to publicly as Officer B, to do the first draft of the terms of reference of the investigation into the McSkimming allegations. Basham and former Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura urged Page to have caution in the way the terms of reference were framed.
Basham said the complexities of the matter coloured the approach he took with the investigation, including that the content of Ms Z’s emails were “abrasive” and “outlandish”, and the knowledge that McSkimming intended to apply for the Commissioner’s role.
He expressed concerns he might be criticised by the IPCA if he put McSkimming’s shot at the top job in jeopardy.
The IPCA said the terms of reference were not consistent at all with police’s adult sexual assault policy and procedures, and were instead “framed as a subset of Ms Z’s prosecution”, placing McSkimming as the victim.
“They presented ‘facts’ lifted from Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s statement, they highlighted the troubling nature of Ms Z’s emails and the fact that she had been charged; and they did not have as a starting point the requirement to speak to the victim.”
Basham also directed the investigating officer to report directly to him, which is unusual in the context of a criminal investigation.
The officer said she felt Basham’s “focus was on getting this out of the way” so McSkimming could apply for the Commissioner role “without this hanging over his head”.
The IPCA said Basham had warned the investigating officer, during a discussion about whether she could contact Ms Z, against soliciting a complaint from her.
“He held an entrenched view that Deputy Commissioner McSkimming was the victim rather than the possible offender,” the IPCA report said.
“He was unreasonably preoccupied with ensuring Deputy Commissioner McSkimming was not being unfairly disadvantaged in the forthcoming appointments process for the new Commissioner.
“While [Basham] did not have the breadth of involvement some other senior officers did, the role he played in directing [the] investigation was significant. Therefore, his unbalanced consideration of the issues before him in May 2024 meant about five months were wasted, during which time an adult sexual assault investigation could have been initiated and, potentially, concluded.”
Basham closed the investigation on September 24 of last year and directed staff to close any related matters held in the police database against McSkimming.
The report noted several things that mitigated Basham’s failings, saying he only came into the role in April 2024 with limited handover while other high-priority matters were being rolled out, such as new gang laws.
“As he puts it, his ‘head was spinning’. He has acknowledged that if presented with the same circumstances again, he would do things differently, including being ‘unequivocal about the primacy of alignment to ASA [Adult Sexual Assault] policy in the terms of reference.’”
Detective Superintendent Chris Page was acting Assistant Commissioner of Investigations for part of the relevant period, and was in charge of drafting the terms of reference for the investigation into the emails.
Page had suggested to Kura that a prosecution against Ms Z under the Harmful Digital Communications Act was the right way to make her emails stop, but failed to act on recommendations that Ms Z’s allegations needed to be investigated.
The IPCA referred to his failings as “considerable”, though acknowledged he may not have received “suitably clear instructions” from Kura.
In his acting position, Page was in a position to ensure there were two parallel but independent investigations into the harassment and the allegations, but this did not happen.
“We are driven to the inescapable conclusion that Officer B had no interest in exploring whether there was any truth to the allegations.”
When Ms Z laid 105 complaints, Page “clearly had the view” these reports were no different to the emails she had sent.
Due to his and Kura’s failures, Ms Z’s investigation team decided to prosecute without “all the necessary information”.
Not only this, but Page also chose to accuse Ms Z in the summary of facts of making “false” allegations, while knowing there had not been an investigation into whether they were actually false.
He also directed the investigation team not to allow a diversion for Ms Z on her charges unless she admitted her allegations were false, which the IPCA said was wrong of him to do.
When Page drafted the first version of the terms of reference for the investigation into the emails, his draft accepted McSkimming’s narrative, made multiple assertions of fact that Ms Z had never acknowledged, and implicitly accepted her allegations were false.
“It demonstrated [Page’s] mindset from the outset of his involvement in this matter: that Deputy Commissioner McSkimming was the only victim, and that there was nothing else to investigate.”
Angela Brazier, the executive director of the Firearms Safety Authority, failed to disclose relevant information about McSkimming when providing a reference for him to take the Commissioner role, the authority said.
She told the IPCA she had known McSkimming for about 20 years.
When approached by the Public Services Commission (PSC) to provide her reference, she was asked if there was anything she needed to disclose about McSkimming’s integrity, conduct or behaviour that could bring the police into disrepute.
The PSC recorded her answering that there was nothing to disclose.
In her interview with IPCA, Brazier said she had known about McSkimming’s affair, the fact he was being “harassed” with emails, and that he was under investigation, which she said he was “pretty angry” about.
She said when she provided her reference she did not know there were allegations about McSkimming, and did not know precisely what he was being investigated for.
She said she did not think this information was relevant to the PSC.
“I didn’t interpret that he was being investigated for wrongdoing. That isn’t how I interpreted it. I interpreted it as a consequence of him raising a concern. But I didn’t see that it affected his ability to do the job,” she said.
The IPCA said her disclosure in this process was “inadequate”.
Chambers told Newstalk ZB’s Heather Du Plessis-Allan on Thursday if investigators were to discover something criminal had occurred in the court of this case, police would lay charges “whether you’re a member of police or not”.
When asked whether the court of justice had been perverted, he said he had asked “specialist investigators” with senior oversight to “have a look at that”.
“I want to be reassured that there’s nothing more to see here, so I’ve asked that,” he said.
I haven’t got that answer yet because that’ll just take a little while for us. They’re having a look at it, and as a result of what they determine, there may be charges in an investigation or there may not.
“If it’s suggested that there’s something that we may need to look at here, then of course, we would do that because that’s our job.”
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.