Former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told the chair of the police watchdog that a woman who was accusing Jevon McSkimming of sexual offending had “effectively acknowledged her desire to ruin his career”.<\/p>\n
In the letter, obtained by RNZ, Coster said the disgraced former Deputy Police Commissioner was “highly remorseful” for having an affair and had “owned it publicly” in his church community.<\/p>\n
The letter was first revealed in a scathing report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) into how police handled allegations of sexual offending by McSkimming relating to a woman he had an affair with.<\/p>\n
The IPCA’s report said the letter was sent by Coster to the chair of the IPCA, Judge Kenneth Johnston KC, on 22 October 2024, just over a week after the IPCA informed police they were doing an independent investigation into the woman’s allegations.<\/p>\n
RNZ has obtained a copy of the letter under the Official Information Act.<\/p>\n
Do you know more? Email<\/i><\/b>\u00a0sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz<\/p>\n
The letter begins with Coster saying he was writing to “formally express my concerns” about the chain of events leading up to the launching of an independent investigation by the IPCA into McSkimming and “its potential impact” on McSkimming’s career.<\/p>\n
“My primary concern relates to the Authority’s decision to commence an investigation at such a critical point in the Commissioner appointment process, given all of the circumstances of this case.”<\/p>\n
Coster then listed 13 “key facts as I understand them”.<\/p>\n
The first was that McSkimming had an affair with the woman, referred to as Ms Z in the IPCA’s report, “many years ago”.<\/p>\n
“He is highly remorseful of this fact and has worked through it not only with his wife but within his (large) church community, where has owned it publicly.”<\/p>\n
Coster also said McSkimming had declared the relationship through “multiple appointment processes”.<\/p>\n
The former police commissioner said that following the end of the relationship Ms Z was “clearly impacted”.<\/p>\n
“She has embarked on a persistent course of communications directed at Jevon, aimed at discrediting him. These communications have been sent far and wide over an extended period of time (to Police email addresses, politicians, media and the Authority).”<\/p>\n
He said Ms Z had never put her name to the communications, adding that the allegations had “never been supported with information beyond the bare allegation itself”.<\/p>\n
“The only way that Police or the Authority knows (Ms Z’s) identity is because Deputy Commissioner declared it to Police as part of expressing his concern about the course of conduct aimed at him.”<\/p>\n
Coster also alleged that Ms Z had in communication with McSkimming “effectively acknowledged her desire to ruin his career”.<\/p>\n
McSkimming brought a complaint of criminal harassment after exploring a “wide range of options to stop the behaviour directed at him and his family”.<\/p>\n
Police initially tried to provide support to Ms Z through the joint Police \/ Health multidisciplinary Fixated Threat Assessment Unit (FTAC) using a “mental health-led approach”.<\/p>\n
“Only when a supportive intervention failed to shift the behaviour, did Police take the step of prosecution for criminal harassment. This was not a path we embarked on lightly, given the circumstances.<\/p>\n
“It is clearly the Police view that Jevon is the victim of the offence and that there is evidential sufficiency to prove the charge.”<\/p>\n
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Former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told the chair of the police watchdog that a woman who was accusing Jevon McSkimming of sexual offending had “effectively acknowledged her desire to ruin his career”. In the letter, obtained by RNZ, Coster said the disgraced former Deputy Police Commissioner was “highly remorseful” for having an affair and had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17373,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17371\/revisions\/17373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}