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