• An Independent Police Conduct Authority report said that two officers used ‘excessive and unjustified force’ in making arrests.
• One was charged with common assault, although the charge was later dropped.
• Both officers were sanctioned after an internal investigation.

A police officer was charged with assault after two men who were filming an earlymorning police incident on their phones were pushed, handcuffed, and forcibly arrested, only to be released hours later.

The charge against the police officer was later withdrawn when the man who was pushed with “excessive” force indicated that he was not prepared to give evidence in court.

However, two officers involved in the incident in central Auckland in 2022 were later sanctioned, and “significant work” was done with their team on its practice and culture.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) investigated the encounter and found that police used “excessive and unjustified force” in arresting the two men.

The men also claimed that officers deliberately drove in a manner which left them bouncing around “like loose basketballs” while handcuffed and unable to brace themselves while in the back of a police van.

But the authority was unable to determine if the van was driven intentionally to cause harm to the occupants.

During the arrests, one of the men’s phones was damaged and the other went missing. Its owner later tracked it to an unrelated address in Auckland.

The officers are not named in the IPCA report released today. They are identified as Officer A and Officer B.

The two men, one of whom made the complaint to the IPCA, and who are cousins, were named Mr X and Mr Z.

The report detailed how they were walking past an incident involving several police at 6am on September 25, 2022, which led to one man being arrested and another taken to hospital.

Mr Z took out his phone and started filming.

Officer A and Officer B warned Mr Z not to interfere before Officer A pushed the man and then arrested him for obstruction.

Mr X then started filming and Officer A arrested him for the same offence.

During the arrest, Mr X stepped or was forced backwards into a bus shelter.

Both men were taken in the van to the Auckland custody suite. Mr Z was held for five hours and Mr X for two-and-a-half hours before they were released.

The IPCA investigation made several findings, including that Officers A and B were not justified in pushing the men, and that their arrests and the force used against them were unlawful.

If the arrest of Mr Z had been lawful, the force used against him by Officers A and B would have been justified, the report said.

However, in the case of Mr X, other officers reported that either Officer A or B had thrown punches at him.

“Even if the arrest of Mr X had been lawful, the force used during his arrest was excessive and therefore unjustified.”

The IPCA report said the only potential justification Officers A and B had for using force was in self-defence.

“However, we do not believe that either officer feared for their safety,” the report said.

“In our view they were therefore not acting in self-defence and had no lawful basis for the more forceful pushes of Mr X and Mr Z.”

Officers initially charged Mr X and Mr Z with obstruction, but a decision was made in the custody suite to release them both with the offer of a restorative justice pathway.

As the pair considered their arrests unlawful, this was not followed through.

“In our view, the police decision to not pursue charges against Mr Z and Mr X was not only appropriate but necessary to avoid police embarrassment and wasting judicial time and costs,” the IPCA said.

Relieving Auckland City District Commander, Acting Superintendent Sunny Patel, said that in addition to the IPCA report, police carried out an internal investigation which resulted in Officer A being charged with common assault.

“However, the charge was withdrawn when the man did not appear in court to give evidence,” Patel said.

“We also undertook an employment investigation, which resulted in both Officer A and Officer B receiving an internal sanction,” he said.

“Officers can always learn from situations like this one, and we will continue to do so.”

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.