Jevon McSkimming scandal: The key detail from scathing IPCA report
Wednesday, 12 November 2025
A scathing report into major police failings at the highest level has left ministers shocked, spurred a new independent police watchdog and sent a prominent public service head and former top cop on leave.
The scathing IPCA report concerned the handling of sexual accusations made against former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming, who pleaded guilty last week to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.
It can now be reported that police arrested and prosecuted the woman who complained about McSkimming - the charges were later withdrawn - instead of properly investigating her complaints.
The report makes a number of adverse findings against former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, who is now the head of the Social Investment Agency. He is now on leave.
Coster has declined to comment while an employment investigation is under way. A statement this morning said, “As has been publicly noted by Ministers, this is now an employment conversation between the Public Service Commissioner and Andrew Coster. He will not be responding to media ahead of that process.”
Here is what that report said:
A young woman made three complaints through the official 105 system about a senior police official 19 years older than her. Instead of being investigated they were labelled as false and used to prosecute her.
Ms Z (her name is redacted in the report) was a young woman who met McSkimming in 2015 at a sporting club. The relationship became sexual in 2016 - McSkimming says consensually, Ms Z says non-consensually. Ms Z worked for the police in a casual role McSkimming recommended her for. The relationship ended in 2018.
Ms Z began sending emails to McSkimming and others complaining about his conduct, alleging unconsensual sexual interactions and a threat to use an intimate image of her. These emails became more numerous in late 2023 and early 2024. Out of concern for McSkimming’s welfare the matter was referred to the “Fixed Threat Assessment Centre” - a special joint initiative between police and Health NZ to help public-facing people who become targets of harassment. This referral ultimately resulted in the matter being transferred to Wellington District police who began investigating the matter - an investigation the IPCA found was focused solely around the potential guilt of Ms Z for her alleged harassment, not for the allegations against McSkimming.
In April of 2024 Ms Z made three reports to the police 105 number anonymously concerning McSkimming. One stated 'Jevon Murray McSkimming took unsolicited photo/s of a young female and threatened to use them publicly to try and silence the young female and threatened that he knew just how to 'destroy' her life. Sexually assaulted NZ Police staff'.
These were not entered into the Police Integrity and Conduct database or referred to the IPCA. Instead they were sent to the Wellington District investigation team and ultimately used as evidence in a Harmful Digital Communications Act criminal prosecution against her - with the label in the system of “False 105 reports”.
Commissioner Andrew Coster misled the Public Service Commission.
Andrew Coster became commissioner of police in 2020. Both he and McSkimming agree that he was made aware of the relationship at the time, and the fact that Ms Z was sending emails.
When McSkimming was being appointed deputy commissioner in 2023, Coster did not tell the appointments panel directly, although he did discuss it with one member - Heather Baggott.
Later on September 16 2024, when Coster was stepping down and suggesting that McSkimming replace him as acting commissioner, Coster said in a text message to the Public Service Commission there were “no current complaints relating to Jevon, both with our Professional Conduct unit and the IPCA”.
This was despite the fact that “Operation Herb” - an investigation into the complaints within police - was ongoing at this point and Coster had spoken to the officer conducting it on the same day. The IPCA found that this text to the PSC was so limited that it had “the effect of misleading them”.
Several weeks later on October 8 Coster backed McSkimming as a “fit and proper person” and said that he believed the IPCA was “content” with the outcome of the investigation, and that Ms Z’s lawyer had not participated in the investigation.
The report found his disclosure “fell well short of what a reasonable person would expect, given what he knew at the time”.
The IPCA were scathing on this matter given the fact that the month prior Coster had talked on the phone with an “officer M” who recalled telling Coster in detail about the fact there was an ongoing issue with McSkimming that was sitting “outside our system” with “huge organisational risk”. Coster disputes the recollection of the conversation but the IPCA backed the officer’s recollection over his - and there was a text message where she wrote “I do see this as a risk to the New Zealand Police and Jevon”.
The IPCA found that Coster should have at least made an effort to find out more about the most current information.
“The disclosure by Commissioner Coster was at least inadequate because it was not based on assuring himself he had the most current information, and because he failed to include potential integrity risks. In doing so, he created the further risk of appearing to deliberately mislead PSC.
It also found he inappropriately tried to influence an investigation.
About the same time, it found Coster inappropriately tried to influence the NIU’s [National Integrity Unit] investigation into Ms Z’s complaint “and to persuade the IPCA that the matter could be resolved quickly”.
“While Commissioner Coster focused on the need to afford natural justice to Deputy Commissioner McSkimming, he did not sufficiently consider the injustice that would arise if there was indeed truth to Ms Z’s allegations.
Senior officers, including the Commissioner, attempted to shape the approach to the proper investigation “so as to bring it to a rapid and premature conclusion”.
It was decided to launch a proper investigation in October 2024. In September to October 2024, “the reluctance to thoroughly investigate was driven by a view, strongly held in particular by the Commissioner and communicated to other senior officers, that it would be unfair to conduct an investigation that had the effect of jeopardising Deputy Commissioner McSkimming’s prospects of being appointed as the next Commissioner, a process that was by then underway”.
“That view was driven by a belief that this would potentially result in further and unjustified victimisation of the Deputy Commissioner. The belief appears to be based on the proposition that Police are justified in not undertaking, or in curtailing, an investigation into a sexual assault allegation if it would jeopardise a suspect’s work or promotion prospects – an argument that, in any other context, would be regarded as untenable.”
McSkimming put Ms Z’s name forward for consideration when police were employing casual staff and personally requested she be based out of Wellington.
The report found “certain features” about the affair between McSkimming and Ms Z that were notable - that included a large age difference, she was 21 while he was 40, he was a coach (not Ms Zs’) at a mutual sporting club, and his seniority within police.
MsSkimming, who was aware police were employing casual staff, sent her name in via email for consideration, then personally requested she be based out of Wellington Central Police Station rather than Porirua, which was closer to his own place of work.
After a large number of anonymous emails with the theme that McSkimming was a “sexual predator” were received by senior police officials and politicians, Coster asked for them to be referred to the ‘fixated threats assessment centre for consideration’.
A large number of emails were sent anonymously from several email accounts from late December 2023 to January 2024 - “The content of the emails was often graphic. A recurring theme was that Deputy Commissioner McSkimming is a sexual predator who targets young females”.
The people that went to included McSkimming, the Police Minister, the Prime Minister, the IPCA and some media outlets.
Coster, on January 25, 2024, asked Deputy Commissioner Kura to refer the emails to the “Fixated Threats Assessment Centre for consideration and noting that he believed the emails reached the threshold for action under the Harassment Act 1997”.