The thinnest of blue lines

The country's trust in the police has been shaken by scandal after scandal.

- Danyl McLauchlan

There must have been a moment - horrifying, vertiginous, the worst in his life? - when former police commissioner Andrew Coster learnt that objectionable material featuring child sexual exploitation and bestiality had been found on the work devices of his former colleague, deputy police commissioner Jevon McSkimming. By then Coster was head of the new Social Investment Agency, one of National's flagship projects. The quick, methodical mind that took him to the heights of the public service would have instantly grasped the dire consequences for his own career.

McSkimming's phone and laptop were examined as part of an Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA) investigation regarding allegations of sexual misconduct by McSkimming towards a junior non-sworn staff member.

But the IPCA was also scrutinising the conduct of senior police around their handling of these complaints. The release of its report this week revealed Coster and his team failed to act when those allegations were made and delayed investigating. And when a review was finally conducted, they interfered with it so as not to compromise McSkimming’s ambition to replace Coster as head of police.

Coster is now on leave pending the outcome of an investigation by the Public Service Commission.

Journalists are often accused of cynicism. Why can't they write about all the good things that happen in the world? One of the drivers of the bleak worldview - especially among political reporters - is the knowledge of just how much wickedness in high places goes unpunished; the routine methods by which investigations and inquiries are used to protect the powerful, rather than expose them. The IPCA review is a rare exception to this rule. It offers a case study of how bureaucracies avoid accountability while creating the illusion of oversight.