Asia Pacific AML, Kerry Grass
On 11 November
2025, a 135-page investigation report was publicly released
by the New Zealand Independent Police Conduct Authority (the
NZ IPCA). The NZ IPCA Investigation Report is titled
– “IPCA
Public Report – Review of Police handling of complaints
against Jevon McSkimming”.
The background
is that a former police officer, Mr Jevon McSkimming,
engaged in an extramarital affair with a lady who was aged
20 years and he 40 years. The extramarital affair
occurred from early 2016 and reported to have ended around
May 2018. Paragraph 18 of the IPCA Report
states –
[Paragraph 18 IPCA Report] – We
understand that sometime after May 2018 when the
relationship had ended, Ms Z began sending emails to Deputy
Commissioner McSkimming and others, making accusations about
his conduct.
At some time in all this, Mr
McSkimming confessed his sins to his wife and employer and
it appears that life continued with Mr McSkimming not being
dismissed for entering into an extramarital affair, whilst a
NZ Police employee.
I am sure extramarital
affairs are probably quite common in the NZ Police and
whether they are a police misconduct that is dealt with
through dismissal is a decision by the NZ Police
employer. At the time of this disclosure by Mr
McSkimming, the responsibilities for general conduct and
management of police employees was former Police
Commissioner Mike Bush.
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If the disclosure
was made by Mr McSkimming and the information did not reach
the desk of the Police Commissioner Mike Bush, then
obviously this is the first situation that indicates
employment matters relating to breaches of police misconduct
are broken. Or, it may be that the NZ Police operate
under a policy that does not require disclosure of
extramarital affairs to be a dismissal offence.
If the
public or the NZ Police now think that extramarital
relationships should result in dismissal, then they need to
fix the transparency of that policy so all NZ Police
Officers and the NZ Public know what the NZ Police
Commissioner, as manager of all NZ Police employees,
considers as non-criminal conduct that will result in
disengagement.
Sorting out that part of the problem
should be fairly easy and certainly not something that the
government executive should find difficult to document
within NZ Police policy. This will enable public
transparency and accountability.
This is what this
current case is all about – ensuring the NZ Public can
trust and rely on the NZ Police to manage conflicts of
interest. And to have systems in place to manage
conflicts of interests well without engaging in an abuse of
process and a subsequent abuse of statutory powers. If
the NZ Police cannot provide transparency on how they
achieve that, then it is not possible for the public to gain
the level of trust that the public require from our NZ
Police force.
Has the IPCA Covered All Relevant
Issues?
The issues that the IPCA have focused on has
missed out the real issues and, it appears that missing out
the real issues is not by mistake, or at least, missing out
or brushing over the real issues is not by
mistake.
Firstly, the IPCA acknowledges on two
separate occasions, the first in 2018 and then again in
2023, it was alerted through social media posts of
allegations against Mr McSkimming. On both occasions,
the IPCA failed to exercise its powers to follow-up that
lead of inquiry.
On page 127 of the IPCA Investigation
Report, it sets out in late 2023 and early 2024, Mr
McSkimming was receiving a barrage of anonymous emails,
including anonymous communications being sent to the
IPCA. On 9 January 2024, the IPCA replied to this
‘anonymous’ complainer and provided advice on how a
formal complaint can be submitted. On 10 January 2024, the
‘anonymous’ person replied and confirmed they did not
wish to formalise a complaint.
This is obviously
clearly a person or persons who had intent on making
vexatious complaints against Mr McSkimming, whilst having no
intention to formalise their concerns. Though the IPCA
report consistently refers to “anonymous complaint” and
that Ms Z (the alleged victim) was behind these anonymous
complaints, the IPCA Investigation Report is void of any
information to confirm why the IPCA believes these anonymous
communications were arising from Ms Z.
Nor is there
any consideration in the IPCA Investigation Report that the
barrage of anonymous complaints were being made vexatiously
and for the purpose of derailing McSkimming from his
promotion to Police Commissioner.
How well did Mr
McSkimmng’s employer protect Mr McSkimmning from harm that
was arising from these large number of anonymous
communications? How well did Mr McSkimming’s
employer protect his position to ensure the intent of the
maliciously anonymous communicator was not successful in
derailing Mr McSkimming from his imminent appointment to the
role of Police Commissioner?
The IPCA
Investigation Report does not provide any suggestion that
the anonymous large volumes of allegations against Mr
McSkimming were arising from within the NZ Police. The
IPCA Investigation Report does not suggest that these
complaints were being made by persons with professional
jealously towards Mr McSkimming, but at the same time, nor
does the IPCA Investigation Report discount this theory. The
IPCA report simply does not raise this
theory.
Given the timing of these anonymous
complaints, given that the IPCA knew about these allegations
in 2018 and again in 2023 and then in 2024 received
confirmation that no formal complaint was to proceed – the
matter should have ended there.
However, it seems to
be the Minister of Police, Mr Mark Mitchell, was adamant
that Mr Jevon McSkimming would not be working with
him. Minister Mitchell obviously preferred to work
with Mr Richard Chambers – the 2nd in line to the Police
Commissioner role. Mr Chambers had less merit than Mr
McSkimming. This was confirmed in the appointment of
Deputy Commissioner role in 2023 when Mr Chambers missed out
to Mr McSkimming.
That Minister Mitchell disliked Mr
Coster and all of Mr Coster’s executives is quite clear
from the comments Police Minister Mitchell made to the
Q&A television programme on 16 November
2025.
In that interview, Mr Mitchell slipped his
tongue whilst being interviewed by Jack Tame and disclosed
his personal views and clear dislike towards Mr
Coster. Though the Minister of Police slipped his
tongue and revealed his inner feelings towards Mr Coster,
the Police Minister did not substantiate or align the
information that would qualify his comments towards Mr
Coster. Most obviously any actions by Police Minister
Mitchell towards Mr Coster or Mr McSkimming are likely to be
bias.
What was Police Minister Mitchell’s Role In
the Jevon McSkimming Saga?
A review of Mark
Mitchell’s appointment to Minister of Police in late
November 2023 coincides with the timing of the emails of
anonymous complaints being sent with regards to Mr
McSkimming. An interesting observation. A
further interesting observation is that Police Minister
Mitchell had an unusual style as a Minister of Police and
seemed to take pleasure in ridiculing Police Commissioner
Coster. New Zealand’s public may even recall Police
Minister Mitchell publishing a letter he wrote to Mr Coster
setting out his expectations.
It is therefore of no
surprise that Police Minister Mitchell acknowledges that it
was him who was driving the narrative that Jevon McSkimming
must be dismissed from the police based on these anonymous
complaints. Police. Minister Mitchell took steps to
have Jevon McSkimming dismissed by making requests to the
Public Services Commission and to the
Governor-General. At this time, it is important to
note that the investigations in to the allegations of the
extramarital matter was only in its early stage.
Requesting someone be dismissed based on an allegation can
be seen as constructive dismissal under employment
law.
It was also wrong for the IPCA to commence an
investigation exactly at the time Mr McSkimming was about to
be appointed to Police Commissioner. The IPCA
commenced the investigation at this time knowing that the
matter was 7-8 years historic, the complainant had no formal
complaint to give and the IPCA and the Minister of Police
had knowledge, without any doubt, that announcing the
investigation would destroy Mr McSkimmng’s career and
appointment to Police Commissioner.
Did that
happen? Yes of course it did. A review of media
publications demonstrates the Minister of Police made sure
the media knew that Jevon McSkimming was under investigation
for a historic extramarital affair. This matter later
concluded its investigation to find no criminal wrongdoing
by Mr McSkimming in this extramarital affair.
This
matter is quite clearly demonstrating improper political
interference by the Minister of Police in the appointment
process of the NZ Police
Commissioner.
Official Information Act
requests are being made to the Minister’s office seeking
clarification of his announcements, the content of those
announcements, the reliability of the allegations and the
timeline to those allegations.
More to
come.
