{"id":17951,"date":"2026-07-21T05:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17951"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:43:11","slug":"more-than-30-police-staff-investigated-over-sexual-misconduct-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17951","title":{"rendered":"More than 30 police staff investigated over sexual misconduct allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than 30 police staff are being investigated over allegations of sexual misconduct, newly released figures reveal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Six of the investigations have been going on for more than 500 days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police say the number of staff represents a “very small proportion” of the workforce, and do not believe the figures indicate a widespread problem across the organisation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ earlier requested under the Official Information Act the total number of police staff under investigation, both criminal and employment as well as how long they had been under investigation for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Do you know more? Email<\/strong>\u00a0sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Figures released by NZ Police reveal that as of 18 June there were 271 open investigations involving 325 police employees. 109 are listed as an employment process only, the rest involve both employment and criminal matters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seven of the investigations had been open for more than 1000 days, including two staff who had been under investigation for 1542 days. Nearly 30 investigations were older than 500 days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Allegations included perjury, manual use of force, such as striking, kicking or restraining, conflict of interest, drugs\/alcohol and disgraceful behaviour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There were 33 staff under investigation for sexual misconduct. Six of those had been going on for more than 500 days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Only one of the investigations had the allegations redacted in the OIA. Police said the allegation code was “sufficiently specific that its release could reasonably be expected to identify an individual connected to the matter”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The investigations are categorised as either employment process, dual process (both a criminal and employment process) and uncategorised (yet to be determined).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In response to questions about the figures, NZ Police acting chief operating officer Leigh MacDonald said allegations of sexual misconduct were taken seriously, regardless of who was involved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The message is clear – nobody is above the law or the standards expected of Police employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Every member of police’s more than 16,000 staff is expected to act with integrity and professionalism and will be held to account where misconduct is established.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police did not believe the figures indicated a widespread issue across the organisation, MacDonald said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The number of staff linked to these allegations represents a very small proportion of the police workforce. At the same time, it is important that people feel able to raise concerns, and that those concerns are listened to and assessed or investigated appropriately.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MacDonald said some of the investigations may result in action being taken, while others conclude that no misconduct occurred.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police Commissioner Richard Chambers earlier told RNZ he had expressed concerns about matters involving employees taking too long to investigate and set an expectation that employment investigations be resolved within 60 days and criminal inquiries involving staff slightly longer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ\u00a0earlier revealed<\/a>\u00a0an investigation was underway in relation to complaints about Chambers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ understands the complaints relate to alleged conduct towards women. It is understood the allegations have not been substantiated at this time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MacDonald said the target was about making sure cases were actively managed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Some cases, however, will take longer because they are complex and involve criminal investigations, external oversight, legal proceedings, multiple witnesses, large volumes of material, or procedural requirements that must be followed. The focus is on resolving matters more quickly while maintaining fairness, natural justice and procedural integrity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Police has put in place a significant programme of work to improve timely resolution of employment and conduct matters, including investing additional resource in the National Integrity Unit. We are already seeing improvements in case progression and resolution rates, but there is still work to do.”<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 30 police staff are being investigated over allegations of sexual misconduct, newly released figures reveal. Six of the investigations have been going on for more than 500 days. Police say the number of staff represents a “very small proportion” of the workforce, and do not believe the figures indicate a widespread problem across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17951","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\/17951","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=17951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17953,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17951\/revisions\/17953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}