The Dominion Post
February 19, 2004

A difficult but necessary inquiry
Editorial

The Government's invitation to people with new allegations against the police to promptly come forward could unleash an unhappy torrent. Since The Dominion Post published the story of Louise Nicholas, the newspaper has become an unofficial conduit for many grim stories. The public is likely to be disturbed by what the commission of inquiry will hear.

It is possible that some claims will be made by people who have a vendetta against police. It will be the role of the commissioners, whose appointments were announced on Monday, to identify those and dismiss them. The commissioners – High Court judge and Law Commission chair Justice Robertson, and former public service chief executive Dame Margaret Bazley – are equal to that task.

Other people will come forward who are sincere. From the stories this newspaper has been told, their cases range from those like that of Mrs Nicholas – who says she was raped by three police officers in the 1980s and several more times by two officers, and who believes that an investigation into her complaints may have been deliberately mishandled – to tales of police officers demanding sex in return for letting drivers off traffic infringements.

The Dominion Post is conscious that the men at the centre of Mrs Nicholas' allegations have rejected her claims and asserted their innocence. It is aware that this is a difficult time for them and their friends and families, as it is for those people who believe they are victims of police behaviour and who must decide whether to take part in public hearings. Those hearings may reveal incidents of which their partners, workmates and families have no inkling.

Individuals must make decisions for themselves but for the commission of inquiry to be effective, courage and honesty is required of all who come before it.

On Tuesday, The Dominion Post ran a front-page photo of a police officer waist-deep in muddy water, going from house to house in flooded parts of the Hutt Valley to check on residents. This was not an everyday occurrence but is the kind of task that police can be called on to do any hour of any day, in any place.

Their job is a difficult one that would be even harder if community support for them was eroded. Both police and the public need to be able to look upon the police as an agency free of corruption that acts without fear or favour in upholding the law.

The allegations that, primarily, though not exclusively, centre on Rotorua police in the 1980s paint a very different picture of policing. It is that picture – of a macho, bullying and swaggering misuse of power and of officers conspiring to protect themselves and each other – that has so disturbed the public and Prime Minister Helen Clark. It is appropriate that the commission of inquiry's terms of reference will be broad.

Police and the public simply have to grit their teeth through this inquiry, whose evidence may be unsavoury. It must be done, and be seen to be done, thoroughly – and then its recommendations, if any, must be acted upon.

That is the only way to ensure police remain worthy of the confidence and trust of the public whom most so faithfully serve.