Complaints ignored, careers protected: the IPCA report lays bare Police failure

Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Luke Malpass is the Post’s political and economics editor

OPINION: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.” That was Judith Collins response to questions about whether there was corruption at the top of New Zealand Police after the finding of a damning IPCA report.

The report lays out an apparently rotten culture inside the former Police executive, where senior leaders closed ranks, ignored procedures and failed to investigate serious sexual misconduct allegations against one of their own.

That person was Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming who has already pleaded guilty to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.

“This is an absolute disgrace,” Commissioner Richard Chambers said.

The nation’s top cop said it wasn’t the processes Police had in place that were at fault, but “people at a very senior level deciding to ignore and put aside those processes out of self-interest.”

Former top cop Andrew Coster, along with a number of others, were fingered with various failings. Collins said of the findings relating to Coster: “If this was me being named in this report, I would be ashamed of myself, and I think that's what I can say. I would be deeply ashamed.”

Coster’s move from top cop to the top bureaucrat at the newly created Social Investment Agency now looks over. He has been placed on leave, ministers are refusing to comment, and if the tone of yesterday’s press conference was anything to go by, he no longer has the Government’s confidence.

Realistically, the only conversations left will be about his exit terms.

During a 37-minute press conference in the Beehive theatrette, a pall hung over the place. Commissioner Richard Chambers, Public Service Minister Judith Collins and Police Minister Mark Mitchell all looked ashen-faced. They knew how serious this was: the failure of Police top brass to take seriously and investigate a complaint against one of their own, instead assuming their mate was in the right and the victim of a vindictive ex-lover out for revenge.

The downfall of Jevon McSkimming all started pretty simply. In 2016 a 40-year-old senior police officer had an affair with a 21-year-old he met at a sports club and who ended up working for Police. On her version of events the relationship was never consensual. On his, she was a fling who didn’t like that the relationship was over and was determined to bring him down, sending emails about him to an increasingly large circle of people.

He continued climbing police ranks. The woman who made the complaints against this high-ranking and powerful police officer was ignored, and ultimately prosecuted under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. .

On page 24, the report notes that by late 2023 and early 2024 large numbers of emails by the woman were being sent, with “a recurring theme [that] Deputy Commissioner McSkimming is a sexual predator who targets young females.”

Andrew Coster’s response? To write to his deputy commissioner, Tania Kura, to ask that the woman who had complained be investigated by the Fixated Threats Assessment Centre, as the emails to McSkimming reached the threshold for harassment.

“The Police response to these complaints was characterised by inaction and an unquestioning acceptance of Mr McSkimming’s narrative of events,” the report bluntly states.

It went right to the top of Police, according to the report, and will now be a permanent stain on the reputation of former commissioner Andrew Coster.

“Commissioner Coster tried to persuade the IPCA to expedite its investigation in his 22 October letter and led two meetings, on 30 October and 4 November, which sought to exercise influence over the conduct of a serious criminal investigation for the purpose of ensuring it did not interfere with a job application process,” the report said.

In the report, it clearly states that both Coster and other senior officers treated the investigation in a certain way because they did not want to dash McSkimming’s chances of becoming the next Police Commissioner.

New Commissioner Richard Chambers, who is well known not to have been part of the Coster regime, fronted up and clearly wanted nothing to do with it.

“I got on with my job. I didn't embroil myself in conversations that weren't focused on doing the right thing for New Zealand along with my staff. So I did not participate in conversations. Frankly, I had no friendship with these people. I got on with my job as a policeman.”

Chambers has been doing a clean-out of the top brass since he has come into the job, and of the three remaining officers identified by the IPCA but not named, he has called in a KC to investigate their employment.

The questions will continue for the Government, Police, and for former commissioner Andrew Coster.