I have to agree with NRT on this one.
Today the police issued their draft code. It completely ignores the recommendation above, and does not mention sexual misconduct at all. So, after five criminal trials and a high-level
commission of inquiry, the police have learned precisely nothing. The attitudes which led officers to look the other way on the rape and abuse of Louise Nicholas and others remain. The belief that abusing the uniform to get laid is a perk of the job remains. The hostility to public oversight and control remains. And so the distrust and the belief that the police harbour rapists will remain. The police have just destroyed their best opportunity to show they have changed and are no longer the force which stood by and watched and protected their own while officers raped and abused and molested. The result will be that the victims of such crimes will not feel that they can report them, and their victimisers will continue to enjoy impunity. And we are all the losers from that.
It’s as clear as glass now that the Police have no trouble whatsoever with sexual misconduct by their own officers. There is no way they can possibly claim otherwise.
They join the growing list of public officials from Helen Clark down who, when caught, just carry on. And the public is finding itself powerless to stop any of this.
Wishart is right about the police. We need to sack Howard Broad immediately and institute a commission of inquiry into police corruption with the widest possible powers.
Hopefully that comes just after we get rid of the root source, and elect a John Key led National government.
Looking at this a little more objectively, I think we will find that the sexual conduct section is actually bound as a second (and much larger) volume, and is being issued separately.
They were just waiting for a new shipment of paper for their printers.