‘Pissed Off’: Former Gun Safety Boss Hits Out At Police, Speaks On McSkimming Probe

Sam
Sherwood, National Crime
Correspondent

The
executive director of the Firearms Safety Authority says she
believes she’s been “targeted” by police leadership,
including the police commissioner, and says her reputation
is now “shit”.

In an exclusive interview with RNZ,
Angela Brazier says she’s “pissed off” with police for not
publicly backing her over what she has labelled as
“unsubstantiated” allegations against her.

She also
says the police watchdog’s report into how police handled
allegations of sexual offending by former deputy
commissioner Jevon
McSkimming was “inaccurate” and says she did nothing
wrong.

On Monday, RNZ
revealed Brazier was retiring after 22 years in the
police.

Her decision to retire was brought on by a
combination of different things, including how she had been
treated by police, Brazier says.

The Government
announced in November that a new specialist firearms
regulatory agency will be created, replacing the FSA. It
will be headed by an independent chief executive appointed
by the governor-general who would report solely to the
firearms minister.

She said she would not be applying
for the new role; “My reputation is shit now”, something she
holds police “wholly” responsible for.

“I don’t think
I’ve been supported well by police, but I’m a big girl, and,
you know, I put up with that for a year. And when I look at
what the future holds, you know, my role will be
disestablished. And do I want to apply for the statutory
Officer role when it could mean undoing what I’ve just been
three years of my life doing? You know, the answer to that
would be no.”

Brazier is not ruling out taking an
“employment complaint” against police.

“I’m not
litigious. I could have gone for and, you know, still might
do, haven’t ruled it out because I know that I’d have
grounds, but I don’t want to have that hanging over me. I
just want to get on with my life and enjoy my retirement,”
she said.

“Talking to you now is about me… giving
you my perspective on what has happened, and I can
categorically tell you that I’ve done nothing wrong. I
haven’t, you know, there’s no bullying, there’s no financial
mismanagement. I got a good performance review, really good
from Tania [Former Deputy Police Commissioner Tania Kura]
before she left, she was my supervisor after Jevon was stood
down. So you know, it’s just been a whole lot of dust kicked
up for no good reason, which has impacted on my
health.”

The
IPCA report ‘Ms G’

RNZ earlier revealed the
identities of some of the senior leaders referred to in the
IPCA’s 135-page report. Among them was Ms G, who is
Brazier.

The IPCA said Brazier told them she had known
McSkimming for about 20 years.

The Authority also said
that when the Public Service Commission approached her for a
reference check on McSkimming in the appointment process for
interim commissioner in October last year she knew
McSkimming had an affair, that he was being “harassed” with
emails from the woman and that Kura had informed McSkimming
that she had to investigate him as part of the police
response.

However, Brazier told the PSC she had
nothing relevant to disclose. She told the IPCA she did not
think her knowledge was relevant to PSC’s
question.

“Ms G’s disclosure was inadequate in light
of her knowledge at the time,” the IPCA said.

Asked
what connection the IPCA report had on her decision to
retire, Brazier said “nothing”.

“Other than it’s
annoying because the IPCA report is inaccurate and I
provided the IPCA with my feedback at the time, and they
didn’t correct it, so they had worked on an assumption that
I knew more than I did. So that’s my position on it. I’ve
done nothing wrong, and yet they’ve interpreted that I
hadn’t given an accurate recount of Jevon in my reference
checking that the PSC did at the time for the interim
commissioner role that Jevon was asked to do.”

Brazier
said the PSC rang her and asked a series of questions
including whether there was anything that would prevent
McSkimming from doing the job.

“And from my
perspective, there was nothing that would prevent him from
doing the job, he’d acted as the commissioner on many
occasions and therefore was able to do the job…,” she
said.

“I didn’t know he was under police
investigation. I had Jevon’s perspective, he was my
boss.”

Brazier told RNZ she knew McSkimming had an
affair with a woman and that he was allegedly being harassed
by the woman with emails. She did not know the affair was
with a staff member. She says McSkimming had told her
“everybody who needed to know, knew”.

“What I knew I
knew from Jevon, not from Tania or police. And that was
that… Jevon spoke to the then-commissioner Andy Coster…
and then Andy spoke to Tania and wanted Ms Z to be assessed
by the fixated threat unit.

“And that as part of that
process that Tania would need to understand his emails, what
the correspondence had been between both sides. Now when I
spoke to the IPCA and they asked me… I used the word
investigate, but actually it wasn’t a police investigation.
It was as him as the victim, as opposed to the perpetrator.
So it was my bad for using the word
investigate.”

Brazier maintains that the knowledge of
there being an affair was not something she thought worth
disclosing to the PSC.

“It was eight years prior and
he was pretty open about it, so it didn’t feel to me like it
was something that would be held or could be held against
him and would prevent him from being able to do the
job.

“And that was the main point was, could he do the
job? Was there anything that would prevent him from doing
the job? So, you know, if you eliminated everybody that’s
had an affair, there wouldn’t be very many people left in
the public sector… certainly it’s not something that I
believe would have prevented him from being able to do the
job at that time, with what I knew then.”

She said if
she had known more information such as the woman’s age (Ms Z
was about 20 years younger than McSkimming when the affair
began), and that she had worked at police then “I probably
would have had a different perspective”.

She did not
believe McSkimming misled her.

“He just didn’t give me
all the facts, but likewise, I didn’t ask either. It’s a
personal thing, and he declared that to me at the point when
he became my boss. But it wasn’t in a way that was I needed
to cover his back. It was, you know, ‘I’m not perfect. I’ve
made mistakes, and I’m not proud of it, but everyone who
needs to know knows’.”

Brazier thought the IPCA report
was “unfair”.

“It did say there wasn’t corruption or
collusion, but actually people were just trying to do their
best with the information that they had at the time. But the
way that the IPCA report is written is as if everybody were
colluding, and that Ms Z was, you know, hard done by in
terms of how she was treated and that she wasn’t listened
to.

“But actually… that side of the story hasn’t
come out as far as I’m aware.”

Asked whether she
believed people were too trusting of McSkimming, Brazier
said given what was known now she would say
yes.

“Everybody can be wise in hindsight… I’d worked
with him for 20 years, so I thought I had a pretty good
handle on the kind of guy that he was, but obviously I
didn’t, and I wasn’t the only person.”

‘I’ve been
pissed off by police’

Brazier’s retirement also
followed a “health check” of the police agency following
concerns over its workplace culture, including intimate
relationships as well as financial practices.

The
review came after an “internal employment process” at the
firearms regulator which was established following the
Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019.

Brazier told RNZ
all of the allegations made against her had been ruled
unsubstantiated.

“Now I’ve been pissed off by police
because they haven’t come out and said that the allegations
weren’t upheld, and I believe that they should have done
that, because that would have taken the smoke out of it, the
heat out of it right? Because there’s nothing. There’s
nothing to see here. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

She
said she had asked police to publicly state that the
allegations had not been upheld, but police would not, and
claimed she was told “that that’s the way they always deal
with media issues”.

“They don’t go back after there’s
been an investigation and say, ‘Oh, it’s all good. Nothing
to see here’. They just don’t do it. So they weren’t going
to make an exception for me. Otherwise they’d have to make
exceptions for everybody, the same as the health check
report completely clear, nothing, nothing to see there at
all.

“But that’s been a year of my life that’s been
tied up in various investigations which came to nothing
because there was nothing, and then the IPCA
report.”

Brazier said she feels she had been treated
“very poorly” by police in the last year.

“Because I
haven’t been supported. I’ve had, it’s going to be 22 years
in March. I’ve never had an employment issue. I’ve never had
a complaint, a PG [personal grievance] in 22 years and the
other 20 years I worked before that, which wasn’t for
police.

“All of this has happened since the change in
commissioner. So not an issue, a single issue before that.
And then since we’ve got a new commissioner, he’s basically
swept the floor. You’ll know all the people who have left,
and I’m probably, I’ve been the last one hanging on that was
under Coster’s reign and Jevon’s leadership. So it’s just it
felt to me like I’ve been targeted.”

Brazier said
Chambers’ leadership style was “different than many
others”.

“There’s not a values alignment for
me.”

Acting Deputy Commissioner Mike Johnson said the
IPCA is an independent organisation which has delivered its
findings.

“Police will not be responding
further.”

In response to questions from RNZ, an IPCA
spokesperson said the report “accurately sets out the
evidence Ms Brazier provided to us and the conclusions we
reached from that
evidence”.

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