Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hilda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Only a
few weeks after he had reportedly been in contention for
the country's top police job, Deputy Police Commissioner Jevin mcskimming
was suspended and put on leave. The Independent Police Conduct
(00:29):
Authority and the New Zealand Police are investigating, but the
nature of the allegations could not be reported. Months went
by without any developments. That was until last week, when
mcskimming resigned after allegations surfaced of objectionable material being found
on his work computer and Zaid Herald senior crime reporter
(00:51):
Jared Savage broke the story back in December and joins
us today on the Front Page to explain what's going on.
First off, Jared, who is Jevin mcskimming.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Well, up until last week, he was the Deputy Commissioner
of Police, the second most sort of powerful or influential
officer in the country. He's fifty one years old, married,
father of two children, and very senior person within the
police executive in this country.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I read somewhere that he is noted to have a
relatively unique career path within the New Zealand Police.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, those are the exact words used by the Public
Service Commission when he was recommended to be Deputy Commissioner
a couple of years ago. I mean, I guess by
that they mean that most police officers who reached sort
of the upper echelon the more traditional paths would be
to come through as a senior investigator or perhaps the
(01:53):
district commander of an entire region. Jim mcskimming had a
more sort of unique career path because he started off
back in ninety six as a constable around the country Auckland,
West Coast, Southland, you know, and these rural communities, and
he kind of jumped straight from there, sent about ten
(02:13):
years in those kind of frontline roles and then jumped
straight into sort of Wellington and then quickly into Police
National Headquarters where he was doing responsible for more kind
of like strategic or sort of organizational kind of reviews
and projects and things like that. So, for example, he
was sort of the brains behind the rollout of digital
(02:33):
technology to the frontline stuff, so iPads and iPhones and
things like that, sort of revolutionizing that side of policing.
He was also in charge of procurement for you know,
the property portfolios within the Police commercial arrangements. He was
one of the architects of the overhaul of the police
(02:55):
fleet of vehicles moving to Scoda about five years ago.
So you know, he had been in NHQ or Police
National Headquarters for about fifteen years or so U up
until recently.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
So slightly different.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Career path to many others, and I guess that led
to a feeling on the front line, perhaps that he
was a little bit sort of removed or distant from
the realities of day to day policing.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Mc skimming had been on suspension since late last year
facing a criminal investigation, but Police Minister Mark Mitchell recently
received new allegations of a very serious nature. In a
statement today, Mitchell said when mister mc skimming was invited
to respond to the allegations, he chose to resign, confirming
my view that his continuation in the role was untenable.
(03:45):
Mc skimming was appointed Statutory Deputy Commissioner in twenty twenty
three on the recommendation of then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Police Commissioner and the Public Service Commissioner both recommended his appointment.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
There were no red flags at all through that process.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Moving ahead to where we are now, can you give
us a bit of a timeline. How did he come
to be under investigation at the end of last year.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, so, in about sort of October last year, mc
skimming was actually one of the final two front runners
to become the Commissioner of Police, so he was one
of the only two interviewed for the job, which later
went to Richard Chambers, who's the Commissioner of Police now.
A couple of weeks after that, or several weeks after that,
(04:32):
mc skimming was put on leave very quietly, there was
no sort of announcement really like that, and put on
leave and we became aware that he was actually under
investigation by the police and also by the IPCA, which
is the Independent Police Conduct Authority. There's not actually a
lot we can say about the reason for why he's
(04:52):
under investigation at the moment, but we managed to break that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Story sort of middle of December.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Obviously quite big news even though he'd missed out on
the top job, still a very senior police officer, and
it didn't take long for kind of other media to
sort of jump in on that as well, you know,
Police Commissioner couldn't say much, Minister of Police couldn't say much,
IPCA didn't say much, and so all we really had
(05:18):
it was out there there was that a very senior
person was under investigation. And things went quiet for sort
of a month or so into the new year.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And so what are we looking at now, How did
these latest delegations come about or are they the same
allegations made last year.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Well, I'll just back to check a little bit on that,
because earlier in the new year, sort of about the
middle of January, mc skimmings lawyers Mike here in Casey
at the time in Lindakark actually put out a statement
saying confirming that he was under police investigation, that he
had in fact been suspended from the job, not just
not just on leave, but you know, he was cooperating
(05:56):
with the investigation and also essentially saying once I'm I'm
going to get back to work, I'm going to resume
my duties.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And that was sort of like the last sort of
update that we'd had back in January, and then everything
kind of went quiet again for a little while, was
sort of meander along, and then last week out of
the you know, so here we have in January, he's saying,
I'm going to I'm going to clear my name, I'm
going to come back, I'm going to I'm going to.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Get back to work.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And then suddenly last Monday there was the announcement that
he had actually resigned, and it was a bit of
a bit of a bombshell and I came out of
came out of left field a little bit. I guess
probably the more sort of the more sort of really
interesting thing about it was that sort of Mark Mitchell,
the Minister of Police, put out a very strongly worded
statement shortly after the news broke that he had resigned, saying,
(06:44):
you know, had he not resigned, we would have removed
him from office. There's been some very serious allegations come
to light recently. We put those to dm M skimming
and then he chose to resign. Very unusual statement. Really after,
you know, after months of truly everyone's saying nothing, we
had this very strong statement come out. What the statement
(07:06):
did say didn't say what the allegations were, but it
did say that they were separate to the original the
original complaint that he was being investigated for, so two
separate investigations unrelated to each other, but clearly some information
had some new information had come to light as part
of the original inquiring.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
One of the latest developments here is the super injunction.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
What is that and what does it mean for this case?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So I'll just spac take a little bit too there
because with when Mark Mencheled the police minister put out
that statement about these, you know, quote very serious allegations,
he didn't actually say what those allegations were. It was
sort of left out there and didn't tate long. We
broke a story to say that that pornography had allegedly
me found on GEMM Mcskimmings sort of work computer. And
(08:06):
in the next day there was sort of a further
development to that that amongst the pornography allegedly found in
his computer, there was images or videos that were being
investigated as potentially objectionable material. So that's you know, potentially
criminal charges could be laid as a result of that.
So that discovery alleged discovery, I might add on on
(08:30):
Mcskimmings computers. That was what prompted Mark Mitchell to sort
of go to say, well, ke jump before he was pushed.
So that was a big story last week. There was
lots of sort of media friends around that and lots
of reporting amongst sours and R and Z and stuff.
We were able to report that there had in fact
been a superinjunction laid against media in this case because
(08:54):
mcskimmings lawyers became aware that media were going to report
from specific details about the alleged objection and material found
on mcskimmings computers, and they went to the High Court
late on Friday night sought an injunction to stop publication
of those details, which would sort of explain the nature
(09:14):
of the alleged objection and material. But not only that,
the superinjunction also meant that media could not report the
fact that they had been juncted from reporting on it.
So that's known as a superinjunction. It's quite a rare
kind of legal move. We don't see it often in
New Zealand media. It's more common overseas. Sometimes that sort
of put a stop to everything that was happening on
(09:36):
that point. There was another hearing yesterday at the High
Court where mc skimmings lawyers have conceded that the superinjunction
aspect of that that we couldn't even report the gagging
order should fall away, which subsequently was reported on Monday,
And then there's now been another hearing set in a
couple of weeks time to argue whether or not the
media should be able to report the material that would
(09:59):
carrently been gagged from writing about.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Because generally, I mean, and the general public may not
know the intricacies of media law, but generally when someone
hasn't been charged yet and isn't before the courts, you
can give some details about what allegations are, right, we.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Can you know, And obviously every story is very carefully
checked and legally vetted beforehand. There's normally a little bit
more sway before somebody has been charged. But of course
any any reporter or any newser in publishing something has
to be very certain of what they're what they're about
to say, because there's no sort of when you're reporting
(10:37):
on allegations in court following court charges, there's sort of
a there's a legal as a qualified privilege that you
can report these allegations in court as long as it's
done in a fair and accurate manner without any sort
of like legal recourse. If someone hasn't been charged you don't.
We don't have that prediction. So yeah, there's a little
(10:57):
bit more a little bit more leeway, but also need
to be very key for him. I'm very sure of
the facts before you press publish on something like that.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Just on jo gone mac skimming, should you have removed
him before he.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Was able to quit? Look, I'm aware of the resignation.
Speaker 7 (11:17):
I'm not actually going to go into that given the
ongoing police investigation that is in place, as you would expect,
and I've got no further comment to say about.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
That right now.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Tell the public what some of the allegations are in
regards to Does the public header right to know what
those allegations are in regards to it?
Speaker 7 (11:32):
Yeah, I think you'll understand it's an employment matter. I
am aware of the circumstances and of his resignation, and
I think that's appropriate. But again, I'm going to let
the police investigation continue and close out before we have
further comment on it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So we know that Police Minister Mark Mitchell has responded
to all of this, and you've mentioned a couple of
things that he's said there.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
What about Police Commissioner Richard Chambers.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Oh, well, Richard Chambers has also been clearly everyone has
to be kind of quite careful as to what they say.
There's ongoing police investigations here, and sort of initially Richard
Chambers has sort of declined to comment and say, look,
we can't really get into the ins and outs of this,
but you know, Chambers is trying to be a bit
(12:20):
more open and transparent with media where he can, and
he sort of unsolicited actually put out a press release
sort of last week after a day or two of
conjecture and no comments coming out of Police National Headquarters,
he put out of statement saying, look, we understand that
there's a lot of public interest in this. We understand
there are a lot of unanswered questions. We can't answer
(12:42):
those right now, but we you know, we understand that
this could effects of trust and confidence in the police,
and no matter you know, no matter how senior somebody is,
we're going to we're going to investigate this to the
to the fullest and you know, the best that we
possibly can. So he's very much trying to sort of
reassure the public I guess through the media that they're
they're doing doing their best in this in this incidence,
(13:04):
and that in the you know, in the fullness of time,
a lot of those unanswered questions will be answered. A
couple of days later, I mean, this wasn't in direct
reference to Genmic Skimming's resignation, but a couple of days
later they put out a statement saying, we're doing an
independent review of how police IT systems can be, you know,
(13:25):
make sure that they're fully safeguarded and that no one
can access material inappropriately. That wasn't you know, there was
no direct reference to what had happened with Genemic Skimming,
but clearly.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
There is there is a connection there. So you know,
this is a big story for the police.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
This is the potential to go really sideways for them
and really impact on their reputation. But I'm pretty sure
in the fullness of time there will be a lot
of answers, a lot of the unanswered questions will be answered.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
What happens next, Jared, Well, we're.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Going to be in a bit of a holding pattern here.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I mean, the police clearly issessing whether or not the
alleged objectional material on Mcskimmings electronic devices there may you know,
that will need to be as normally these things are
sort of assessed by the Chief Censor and who makes
a ruling or a classification ruling on the material if
it's seems to be ejectionable. I would expect that criminal
(14:19):
charges would be laid against giem Mcskimming, which would obviously
be huge for the New Zealand Police and the public
to have such a senior person facing criminal charges. There's
also a separate so the Independent Police Conduct Authority is
also overseeing the criminal investigation by the police, but they
(14:40):
put out of statement last week to which sort of
confirmed that they were having oversight of the criminal investigations,
but also an independent sort of inquiry looking into how
the police handled the original complaints, the original allegations last
year which set this all off, and they will be
(15:02):
looking into who knew what and when and how and
who did what and I think that'll answer a lot
of questions as to how he got to this point.
Some of the most senior police officers in the country
are going to be interviewed as part of that. I
would expect that to be the former Police Commissioner Andy Costa,
who now heads up the Social Investment Agency. Media were
(15:24):
asking him last week some questions and he said, look,
I can't really comment right now because of these ongoing inquiries.
But in the fullness of time, I'll be able to
give my version of events as well. So there's a
lot to play out here, both for mc skimming and
the White Police executive I think as well. You know,
it's obviously going to have political ramifications as well for
(15:47):
the government they are. They've come in as a law
and order government and they've come in at a time
they've got to get a new police commissioner in place,
so they've put in there to sort of to roll
out there sort of policy programs, and you're overshadowing all
of that work at the moment is the fact that
you know, the second most powerful police offers in the
(16:07):
country resigned last week and space thing serious, potentially serious
coming allegations.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
So there's a lot more to play out here.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Thanks for joining us, Jared.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
No problem, Chelsea. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.