{"id":18193,"date":"2026-08-11T12:29:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T00:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18193"},"modified":"2026-08-11T12:29:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T00:29:23","slug":"oranga-tamariki-under-fire-for-telling-police-to-wait-six-months-for-investigation-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18193","title":{"rendered":"Oranga Tamariki under fire for telling police to wait six months for investigation information"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The chief victims advisor has “significant concern” about revelations Oranga Tamariki told police they would have to wait almost six months for information requested as part of a investigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She also wants to know how one of 40 child protection complaints that have been re-opened was closed without the victim’s details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It comes after RNZ received more than 100 pages of emails under the Official Information Act (OIA) in relation to Operation Hark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Operation Hark began after concerns were raised in May about Detective Inspector Kevan Verry’s handling of a historical sexual abuse case in Northland that had sat for a couple of years with no investigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That led to more than 50 child protection and sexual assault cases being re-opened.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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

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Police are also reviewing their systems used to manage child protection and sexual assault cases and have established an External Advisory Group to provide external oversight and assurance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The emails obtained under the OIA revealed that On 25 June, police sent an information request to Oranga Tamariki. Five days later they got a response from OT saying they would grant their request.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“As we are currently receiving more requests than anticipated, we are experiencing delays in processing these.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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OT said it would supply the information by 7 December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Internal police emails reveal the request was urgent because investigators needed information that would help identify the victim including the names and details of children placed in a person’s care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police then emailed a staff member at OT saying they were taking another look at an older file “which we believe holds risk for both police and OT”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It has come to our attention because of a sensitive matter which I can’t elaborate on at this time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“What I can say is that this IR relates to [redacted] so there is obvious risk and additional scrutiny attached to this.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police asked for the request to be “escalated in the priority queue”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The estimated response time of December 2026 by OT is going to create significant problems in addressing the risk.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The documents do not reveal what action, if any, OT took in response. It was not until 6 July, after media began asking questions, that the agency was formally told about what police had dubbed Operation Hark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Chief<\/div>
Chief victims advisor Ruth Money.<\/p>\n

NZME \/ Alex Burton<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chief victims advisor Ruth Money told RNZ on Tuesday she had “significant concern” that OT told police it would take almost six months to get the requested information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“As the Chief Victims Advisor, I want to understand why this is the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“For example, was the initial Police request not clear, or is OT that under resourced that children at risk have to wait this long? I will be following this up because I am sure all the victims and whanau across New Zealand also wish to understand this.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She would also be seeking to understand how a file that had a victim attached to it could be closed “and then seemingly Police do not have the victims details.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“These types of issues are why the external reference group exists and these are the questions we seek to understand and more importantly ensure processes are changed so they are not repeated.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nine reports of concern<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive Thomas Ronan earlier told RNZ OT had completed a review of all cases identified by police as potentially impacted and which involved children, all of whom were under 18 at the time of reporting to police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We did not identify any cases requiring urgent intervention to keep children safe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“However, we continue to work with police locally to consider each case, share information, and determine any further actions required.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Asked how many of the Child Protection Protocol cases required further action by OT, Ronan said the agency had worked with police on most of the cases identified thus far to determine what further<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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response was appropriate. This included engaging with children and families.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Nine reports of concern have been created as a result of the police and Oranga Tamariki review of the identified cases,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A report of concern is a notification to Oranga Tamariki about suspected abuse, neglect, harm, or wellbeing concerns for a child or young person.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ also approached police for comment on the OIA including why the victim’s name was not known and why Oranga Tamariki was not informed of the investigation before 6 July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In response, Detective Superintendent Keith Borrell said police had made specific enquiries with OT “during an early and sensitive stage of our investigations”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“During the initial assessment phase of Operation Hark we were working to understand the scale of the situation. We have shared more fulsome information once it was appropriate to do so with OT.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Borrell said police were “not in a position to comment on specific cases that are in the re-investigation phase”.<\/p>\n

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

The chief victims advisor has “significant concern” about revelations Oranga Tamariki told police they would have to wait almost six months for information requested as part of a investigation. She also wants to know how one of 40 child protection complaints that have been re-opened was closed without the victim’s details. It comes after RNZ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18193","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=18193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18195,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18193\/revisions\/18195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}