Rape, abuse cases on Bay waiting list

Rape and child abuse crimes are among 24 cases in the Western Bay not being investigated - forcing police to bring in two extra specialist officers to help slash the backlog.
Figures obtained by the Bay of Plenty Times this week show Western Bay police have 18 sexual or physical abuse and six dishonesty complaints not assigned to specific investigators.
Of the abuse cases, 11 are said to be related to "current" and seven to "historical" crimes.
The revelation comes amid controversy sparked by a letter from a Papakura sergeant to a South Auckland dairy owner saying police were too busy to investigate a shoplifting complaint despite being supplied with video footage of the criminal.
Western Bay area commander Inspector Murray Lewis said the local abuse cases involved other agencies. In four of the cases police were waiting for a response from agencies before further action could be taken.
He said those cases should be assigned within the next couple of weeks.
Some of the cases involved children or rapes. "These cases are closely managed and the priority in every case is that the victim is made safe and that any evidence available at the time is taken," Mr Lewis said.
"This action is undertaken immediately by police and partner agencies but if the offence is historical there is no possibility of gathering any physical evidence."
He would not say how many children were involved or how many rape cases there were.
The oldest of the unallocated crimes is a physical assault that happened in November. The cases were not allocated because of the high number being reported and the limited number of staff in the specialist child abuse team. Mr Lewis said two additional staff had joined the team in an attempt to reduce the backlog.
The Western Bay statistics come after Police Minister George Hawkins last week said there were 2043 unallocated cases throughout the nation, of which 1134 were in the Counties-Manukau district.
ACT leader Rodney Hide claimed in Parliament that nine complaints of rape were among 1000 to 1500 files yet to be assigned in South Auckland.
National's law and order spokesman Tony Ryall sought a list of unallocated cases in each police district. That list showed there were only 16 unallocated cases across the wider Bay of Plenty district - compared with the Western Bay figure of 24 released by Mr Lewis.
Mr Ryall said the discrepancy was concerning. "There seems to be confusion over how many unallocated cases there really are," Mr Ryall said. "More questions will have to be asked of the Government."
A Bay of Plenty Police Association representative, Detective Mel Ridley, said there were simply not enough police staff to deal with the workload.
"There are a lot of investigations that are assigned but there are a lot of investigations that aren't being done because there is no one to do it," Mr Ridley said.
"Everyone who rings the police considers their case is important but we always start on the back foot because we don't have enough staff to get out there and investigate."
Victim Support chief executive Steve Caldwell said any delay in assigning cases hindered the healing process. "It's important victims feel they are being taken seriously," Mr Caldwell said.
"If they feel their cases have been sidelined or delayed and they get the impression they are not important, then that's revictimisation."
Police Commissioner Rob Robinson said district managers were looking at ways to deal with the unassigned files.
He said all complaints were important and, although not every incident might be attended, the information was held in a database.
It has been revealed that 266 unassigned cases in the North Shore-Waitakere district were not included in the original figures because although they had not been assigned to an individual, they had been assigned to a police team.
In the other regions, Auckland city had 410 unallocated files, Wellington 100, Canterbury 96, Northland eight, Eastern seven and Tasman six.
Waikato, Central and Southern had no unallocated files.