KEY POINTS:
The Corrections Department spent more than $250,000 in legal fees trying to defend - unsuccessfully - its decision to fire a senior corrections officer.
Rakai Tawhiwhirangi, who served the department for 21 years, was dismissed last year for allegedly assaulting a prisoner, but he appealed to the Employment Relations Authority.
In May, the authority found there was insufficient evidence of assault, and if assault had occurred it was towards the minor end of the scale. It ordered Mr Tawhiwhirangi's reinstatement and awarded him compensation.
The department appealed the decision to the Employment Court, which upheld the authority's decision.
The department spent $12,900 in legal fees in taking the matter to the authority, and a further $251,000 in appealing to the court. The figures were released to the Herald under the Official Information Act.
Mr Tawhiwhirangi has since been fully reinstated and is expecting substantial financial compensation, to be determined by the Employment Court.
However, Corrections continues to investigate Mr Tawhiwhirangi. The latest allegations are understood to have come from information gathered for the ongoing Rimutaka corruption inquiry.
Mike Martelli, general manager in the department's office of the chief executive, said the department stood by its original reasons for seeking to dismiss Mr Tawhiwhirangi.
The alleged assault that led to the dismissal took place at Rimutaka Prison in February last year. The department claimed that Mr Tawhiwhirangi had hit or slapped a prisoner as he marched him from his office. Prison officer William Collins said he saw the prisoner threaten and verbally abuse Mr Tawhiwhirangi. The prisoner was then forced to the ground. He had asked Mr Tawhiwhirangi to smuggle contraband into the prison. In her ruling, Employment Court Judge Coral Shaw said the contact between the two did not amount to serious misconduct.
The department had been unfair in investigating the incident, had failed to interview Mr Collins, the only eyewitness, and did not consider whether the contact had been justifiable in the circumstances.
She said the way the investigation was carried out "strongly suggests that the investigators formed a fixed and unchangeable view of what had happened even though the [video] footage was not conclusive".
"They were plainly very anxious to ensure that their interpretation of what happened could be verified by the footage."
