- Another corrupt senior cop, thick as two short planks, Otago police districts Assistant Commander, Inspector Andrew Burns
Yet another case of violent police behaviour has been swept under the carpet and by the looks of things New Zealand’s mainstream media (MSM) have, yet again, been complicit in assisting the cops in burying this serious case of an off duty police officers misbehaviour, an assault and subsequent attempted PNHQ’s cover-up.
In late November last year LF reported on the case of a Central Otago cabbie who had been assaulted by a 43 year old female police constable who was certainly old enough to know better than to bash a taxi driver in the early hours of the morning when returning home after what appeared, when reading between the lines of the Otago acting District Commander, the normally outspoken Inspector Andrew Burns press release to LF to be an all night alcohol fuelled bender.
Queenstown constable Jenny McNee has only now, almost six months after the taxi driver and his manager made a complaint, been charged with using “offensive language”. Its another outrageous, and frankly, bold faced attempt by senior police ranks to cover-up police offending. Just think, had the assailant been an Irish backpacker the cops would have thrown the book at him or her, citing various other more serious assaults on taxi drivers. But no, McKnee manages to escape with a slap over the wrist with the standard issue police wet bus ticket
Police claim to have conducted one of their internal police white washes, more commonly known an “internal investigation”, and despite having been supplied CCTV footage by the taxi company, have still, so far, been successful in burying the assault.
This then raises another issue that team LF have particularly strong views on: whether or not victims of police malfeasance should give police, alone, evidence of criminal offending.
LF’s position is relatively simple; the answer is an emphatic NO. Those who do are setting themselves up for an injustice
Kiwi victims of police offending should not be complacent when dealing with New Zealand’s bent police force. In this case the complaint should certainly have been filed with the police, however the CCTV footage should have, in LF’s view, been withheld from police and first supplied to the fifth estate. A media outlet such as LF, www.nzjustice.com or www.nzpca.co.nz, or any other anti-corruption site that has an ability to host A/V material, so as to have raised greater public awareness of the police offending.
Its only ever under these circumstances that the Main Stream Media (MSM) appears to be forced to do the right thing – And its only with repeated exposure that the New Zealand police force can be held accountable for their outragious systemically corrupt behaviour.
Constable Jenny McNee, obviously one of Queenstowns glamour queens – We here at eat LF believe that its for a judge or jury alone to decide, not PNHQ, white-wash bucket & brush in hand.
As it stands in this case, all that the victim and the taxi company manager have achieved, in suppying the CCTV footage to the police alone, is to have given Police National Headquarters a good head start in preparing the wholly predictable, white wash. In cases like this it is never the police’s intention to investigate the offending of an officer such as Jenny McNee, rather its only ever about obtaining the material required to enable their south island legal section, headed up by one of New Zeands most corrupt civilian police employee, Ian MacArthur, to buy the time nessesary to go through the available evidence and do his utmost to demolish the victims complaint, and if need be credibility – of course the excuse’s that they’ve spent the last six months constructing aren’t going to be made public, unless the complainant or his manager decide to challange the police failure to charge McNee, its only then that the public will get to see and hear the spin doctored crap that they’ve spent six months fabricating.
For reasons obvious to any informed reader, the complainant is very disappointed that constable McKnee is not facing assault charges, if it was not so serious it would be laughable.
Meanwhile acting Otago rural area commander Andrew Burns, having successfully stage mangaged the coverup, has told the Southland Times journos, undoubtedly via an emailed “press release” targeting the backwater newspaper alone, that the 43-year-old would face only one charge, that of using offensive language in relation to an incident that occurred in the Queenstown taxi on November 3 2013 and that “Constable McNee is now due to appear in the Queenstown District Court on March 18 and remained on leave without pay, unrelated to the incident“.
Now the medias role in this case is more interesting than it appears. The mere fact that they themselves have not followed up this story with any real vigour is of concern. The Southland Times again displayed, for all to see, their abject failure in reporting the facts accurately and the likelihood that most of their story was derived “verbatim” from a police media release starting with their reporting of the time it has taken police to conduct the “internal investigation”.
The paper cites the taxi company’s manager as stating that the assualt occured on the 3rd November 2013, just 7 days short of six months ago, and then, in the same breath, they cite the manager of the taxi company involved:
“I’m not happy if that’s the only charge that has been laid. From our point of view it’s taken 3 months,” he said.
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/9784586/Queenstown-constable-charged
Beyond the obvious lack of acumen in mathematics, this of course is just one New Zealand mainstream medias standard operational procedures when it comes to dealing with reporting police corruption – twist the facts.
They almost always set out to distort the story in favour of the police whilst attempting to maintain the illusion of “balanced reporting”, obviously three months might have been serious enough, but for police, in reality, to have taken six months to investigate this simple case of assault, when they had the luxury of CCTV footage, is yet further evidence of the attempted coverup LF believes is now unfolding. Just how long would it take for police to investigate any other alleged common assault, when they not only had a complaint and signed statement from the victim, but in addition had been handed CCTV footage and the identity of the assailant, not a lot of investigating involved, we would have thought?
Here’s another question for LF readers, and of course the victim; Did the “investigating officer” even bother to interview the alleged assailant; constable Jenny McNee? Its a valid question given that the failure to interview the cops involved in this sort of offending is an age old technique that the New Zealand police force often employ to assist with their cover-ups:
Canterbury’s Superintendant Gary Knowles, yet another of New Zealands “Deep South” corrupt District Commanders, a man that’s collected a wealth of experience in Police corruption and cover-ups!
Police were wrong not to charge an off-duty cop who used his baton to bash a youth he thought had smashed his letterbox, a review has found.
The Christchurch police officer, who has not been named, was not formally interviewed over the June 2011 incident and no criminal prosecution was pursued after an internal inquiry.
After all the taxi driver was not alone in making the complaint, Queenstown Taxis managing director Grant Scannell was right behind his Malaysian employee, or contractor, in complaining to police. In fact it Mr Scannell, that made the huge mistake of trusting the police in the first place, having he foolishly supplied the police with the CCTV footage from inside the taxi; which it is claimed, evidences the assault as well as McNee’s use of offensive language – As an aside, LF suspects, given the lack of specifics supplied by police and the drivers ethnic background, that the so-called “offensive language” may have included racial abuse.
As the Southland Times quotes Mr Scannell saying:
“I’m not happy if that’s the only charge that has been laid. From our point of view it’s taken 3 months,” ……..”He (the driver) was worried there would be repercussions from the police force but I told him it’s not like that in New Zealand.”
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/9784586/Queenstown-constable-charged
Of course the driver was right to be worried about complaining to the police, after all he is Malaysian and was undoubtedly making this accurate judgment call based on his own personal experience of the police in the country of his birth where the police are extraordinarilly corrupt.
Mr Scannell is certainly the fool in this case. Scannell’s stupidity is underlined by his own antiquated and somewhat distorted view of New Zealand’s police force – a personal schema, that LF knows, will have now, much to his embarrasment, undergone a sudden and monumental psychological realignment.
Of course the driver too will have been seriously traumatised, obviously, firstly by having been bashed by an off duty police officer and then by this attempted corrupt police cover-up, and thirdly, and LF suggests more significantly, by the fact that his own schema will have now irreparably shifted; this particular migrant to New Zealand will have joined a growing number who no longer trust an employers advice, or any native Kiwi’s opinion for that matter, unless of course Scammell now starts to set things right by going into bat for his employee and taking on the police force.
Even so, even if Scammell does the right thing, the victim in this case will certainly no longer believe the propaganda that New Zealand is the rare exception in the world of police corruption and malfeasance and it’s a new realisation that he will undoubtedly also ensure is widely disseminated – and the Police wonder why they have a very serious issue with their credibility, the public perception and trust!
Meanwhile the wanker in charge, acting Assistant District Commander, Inspector Andrew Burns, is displaying the usual haughty arrogance that is now expected of senior police, from the top job, althe way down to commanders in regional New Zealand and more especially in the very corrupt “Deep South” of the country.
Piss-head defence specialist and Contstable Jenny McNee’s lawyer, Nic Soper LLB
As the Southland Times, again, obviously responding to the police media release they’d been working with, reports;
In written responses to The Southland Times, Mr Burns did not comment on the conclusions of the investigation, undertaken by a senior officer from outside the area.
He said: “The charge she is facing is one of offensive language. She is not facing a charge of assault.”
He also declined to comment on the video.
“The evidence police have available to them is a matter at this point in time for the prosecution and not something we will comment on as the case is before the court,” he said.
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/9784586/Queenstown-constable-charged
Meanwhile constable McNee’s legal advisor, Nicholas Soper, who the The Southland Times obviously decided to contact only after receiving the police “media release” apparently advised the reporter that he too was disappointed with the police notification:
“Neither I nor Jenny had received any indication from the police that they had concluded their investigation and reached a decision”……..”She was advised on Friday that a summons had been issued. I haven’t seen any of the disclosure from the police.”
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/9784586/Queenstown-constable-charged
This case needs a little more transparency and the public deserve to see the taxi’s CCTV footage, a video that according to Mr Scannell evidences the assault on his driver – LF intend working on that particular part of this story, the latest in a long, and ever growing, line of New Zealand’s corrupt police cover-up’s.
The reason for this so called police investigation having taken an extraornary six months to finalise is down to two things alone. The police waiting for the initial public interest and heat to die down and like so many other cases the Kiwi mainstream media’s abject failure to do their job. Lets face it police forces all over the world are only ever granted the luxury of time when the local media fails to breath down their fucking necks – investigative journalism, as it used to be known, especially in New Zealand, is all but dead.
Evidence of the New Zealand medias systemic failure to get to grips with police corruption, and in particalar the problems in the “deep South”, is to be found in one of our up comming stories. LF will soon be bring readers yet another inside story, its a tale of serious woe, a narrative account that deals with some very very serious police corruption, corruption that could well have sent an innocent youth to prison.
Its the story of conspiracy, false prosecution and the long road endured by one lone Kiwi who against the odds sought to obtain justice for a young man when the tax payer funded police force was determined shaft the unfortunate victim, a teenage boy who was only ever guilty, if one could even call it guilt, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time – Former officer jailed for perjury.
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2 Comments
Hi I have a trail date coming up in may it involves police brutality not only to me but my two children a 7 year old girl and a four month old baby the police are trying to hold back the CCTV footage. I am wondering do you have the stastics on how often the police are doing this kind of attending. I imagine this would help my case. The incident took place in Thames. Thankyou Mallery
Hi Mallery, no we don’t have any statistics, police don’t collect this type of information for obvious reasons and they also ensure that incidents of the behavior go unreported by NZ media. What we can say however is that it is a very common practice for police to withhold video evidence that does not advance their case. Our advice would be to have your lwyer see an order of the court requiring police to release the CCTV evidence.