Laura Franklin, Editor
One of the most disturbing aspects of the Bazley Report into police conduct was not the fact that several of those we expect to uphold the law were found to have been sexual predators exploiting vulnerable people.
Bad apples exist in every profession and, as New Zealanders will be well aware, those individuals are vastly in the minority among the large numbers of police officers who are decent, hard-working people who operate from the best of motives and dedicate their lives to public service.
No, the most worrying part was not that the bad apples existed, but that the police force as a whole failed to pick them out of the bunch.
Those who are tasked with hunting out violence and lawlessness every day, and who put themselves in a position of enforcing a moral code among the rest of the population were, in the end, found unable to tackle the failings within their own organisation.
Either, as the former police commissioner Richard Macdonald yesterday claimed, they were unaware of the cancer within their culture until it was exposed by the media ... or they stayed quiet for more dubious reasons.
Given that 313 complaints of sexual assault were made against 222 officers, it is scarcely feasible that the hierarchy was unaware of the size of the problem.
Some of those claims were no doubt seen as malicious. A police officer might be a natural target for unfounded allegations. But 141 of those cases were sufficiently strong for criminal charges to be laid, or for disciplinary action to ensue against the officers.
Of the 60 recommendations in the Bazley Report, 12 apply to the Police Complaints Authority, and that's one of the areas in which change is crucial. Our police force has been shown to be sadly ineffective at policing itself.
One would expect that the police management, the PCA, the courts and the justice system as a whole would be sufficient to expose wrongdoing.
However, none of those institutions served to bring this issue to public attention. The actions of police and the court system, in fact, have instead managed to keep information out of the public arena.
It was left to the media to bring this toxic culture into the light - with the help of determined complainants such as Louise Nicholas and Kaitaia's Judith Garrett. It should never have reached that stage.
Now safeguards must be implemented, the old wounds must be healed and good cops must be left to get on with their important work.
EDITORIAL - Steps must be taken to pick out the bad apples
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