Police coverups....

It's noteworthy that in the cases of wrongful imprisonment or violence against prisoners or members of the public that there is often an official response, belatedly, that always reminds the public of the number of years since the things which contributed to a wrongful imprisonment happened, or how the officer involved was dealt with.

Hard to swallow really, when a member or members of the Police are found to have been involved in 'fitting' an innocent person for a crime they didn't commit, it's seldom, if ever an isolated event inside an inquiry. It is an event inside a particular investigation to which there is control to a single man, the officer in charge. So if the OIC isn't 'aware' of what is happening during the 'construction' of the case against an accused he isn't doing his job, but certainly orchestrating and controlling the event. He or she are doing what he/she 'thinks' is the job and encouraging, and then turning a 'blind eye' to the type of incident that led to the wrongful imprisonment of Aaron Farmer, the Christchurch man who was told he had committed a rape because there was proof and probably believed it.

This is another event, like the Thomas case, where an operational officer has apparently become a 'maverick' and helped obtained a conviction in a case where but for his/her intervention the wrong person would have never gone before the Court. The reason why Hutton, in the Thomas case, didn't ask questions over suddenly appearing evidence is because it was his instruction that it was planted and found. The police continue to exercise the helpful explanation that one or two bad eggs were responsible when in fact no operational investigation is at the hands of anyone other than the OIC, and in due course those higher. If one part of an investigation fails because of the unlawful conduct of an officer, then it is also his/her superiors involved. No country fights a war after which it is agreed that it was the man in the trench's fault and not that of Generals who later claim they didn't know the war was on.

The Police have over-used this tactic, it is now as obvious as people's distress about the coverups for officers after inquiries that resulted from planted evidence or perjury, but more so for the leaders who are never held responsible. It isn't good enough, nor that the cover-up continues right to the Commissioner in some cases or the Minister because they accept the 'unacceptable,' a flawed logic or concept that one bad apple in the barrel was the reason for a false conviction. Of course this acceptance is usually many years after the event, and 'distanced' in time for all but the falsely imprisoned, families of the victims and a public made distrustful.