Police acknowledge 'inadequate service' for abuse in care survivors
Tuesday, 16 August 2022
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has again declined to say whether he believes racism exists within police, but acknowledged failing to properly investigate historical abuse in care has caused further trauma to victims.
At a six-hour hearing at the the Royal Commission’s Abuse in Care inquiry on Tuesday, Coster, along with Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura, answered questions about decades of failings by police to respond to abuse against children, young people and vulnerable adults in State and faith-based care between 1950 and 1999.
Over the next two weeks, 43 witnesses from 14 Crown agencies responsible for state care are answering questions from the commission, about the monitoring of abuse, how complaints were handled and whether their obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi were met.
Coster began his evidence by stating it was clear some survivors part of the commission had received “inadequate service from police”.
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“This has been difficult to hear,” he said.
The historical and current treatment of non-Pākehā, Deaf and disabled communities by police was a strong focus of the hearing.
This included examples of use of force against non-Pakeha, a lack of universal policy in dealing with abuse in care, claims involving children being held in police cells and unsupervised interviewing of children, and investigative failures involving Deaf and disabled complainants.
Counsel assisting the commission Julia Spelman referred to a comment made by former police officer Tā Kim Workman stating in the 1980s and prior “racist attitudes among police officers towards Māori children and young people were legendary”.
Coster said it was “very difficult” to comment on Workman’s experience, but stated working with iwi and Māori was now increasingly becoming second nature.
“But I would also accept that it's only been part of our journey since the late 1990s and not something that has been ingrained in the way we operate before then.”
During a lengthy back and forth between Coster and Spelman, he declined to explicitly say that racism exists in the organisation.
However, Coster acknowledged there were “serious questions” to answer in relation to Māori and Pasifika experiences of policing and a significant research programme, Understanding Policing Delivery, was under way.
When provided a specific example, such as a comment made by former Police Commissioner George Urquhart in 1965 declaring Chinese, Hindu [sic], Māori and Pasifika peoples were “unsuited to policing and would not be recruited”, both Coster and Kura acknowledged it was racial discrimination.
Coster agreed the statement was racist, but said it wouldn't have been described as such at the time.
When questioned about previous failures to properly address allegations about people in positions of power, including doctors, teachers and priests, Coster accepted in the past officers may not have recognised the extent of the problem, due to the favourable bias towards the offenders, who were seen as “pillars of society”.
Police have been heavily criticised for their investigative failures relating to Lake Alice psychiatric hospital, leading to an apology by Detective Superintendent Tom Fitzgerald in June last year.
Coster agreed, when questioned by Commission chairperson Coral Shaw, that the investigative failures by police into state care abuse had caused further trauma to survivors.
He also acknowledged, in his written evidence, that historically there had been relatively few policies and procedures to support people with disabilities.
The hearing continues, with the Ministry of Health and Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People, being questioned on Wednesday.