Insurers running police inquiries

By Eugene Bingham

WELLINGTON - Private investigators are preparing criminal prosecution files for insurance companies to spare stretched police.

Police Commissioner Peter Doone has signed an agreement with the Insurance Council giving the companies the right to recommend charges and write up draft court documents.

The deal, signed last October, also gives the companies a right to expect action within set time limits.

A spokesman said yesterday that the Minister of Police, Clem Simich, was unaware of the memorandum, which was a matter dealt with by police headquarters.

Lawyers and civil libertarians are appalled by the arrangements, fearing they will lead to the rubber-stamping of prosecutions. Critics also say the relationship highlights the under-resourcing of the police.

The Insurance Council says the deal is a sign of the times, because police are unable to concentrate on investigations as much as they would have once.

"It's a necessity because at the end of the day insurers pay in dollars and cents if we do not detect these crimes," said the council's chief executive, Chris Ryan.

Companies were not only investigating insurance fraud, but burglaries, thefts and other crime.

Major insurance companies employed teams of up to 25 investigators. There was no formal industry training, but the vast majority were former police officers while others trained as private investigators or had internal company training.

"Insurers are spending millions of dollars undertaking investigations that formerly would have been done by the police and we want prosecutions," said Mr Ryan.

"The next step you will see is private security forces, like the US."

Under the agreement, insurers recognise that the final decision about prosecution rests with police.

But it sets in concrete arrangements under which investigators forward a file with each criminal complaint, providing a recommendation of charges, statements by witnesses and offenders, a draft summary of facts and a victim impact report.

Suspects for the alleged crime will be placed on a police "persons of interest" computer file.

For their work, companies can expect an acknowledgement within 14 days and an undertaking that the complaint will be acted upon within three months.

An Auckland District Law Society spokesman, Gary Gotlieb, said the arrangement smelled of preferential treatment.

"If they [the police] are being spoon-fed in such a way, it may result in a very limited inquiry," said Mr Gotlieb. "It seems to be allowing police to have the work done for them.

"Anyone who makes a complaint should expect the same level of service and response."

The president of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, Barry Wilson, said he was concerned that a special interest group was in a relationship that might enable it to exert pressure on the police.

"It's important that the police make an independent and impartial investigation and are not lent on."

But Detective Inspector Cam Ronald, the acting national crime manager, said the police would not lay charges without scrutinising any complaints handed to them by private investigators.

"It's the police job to investigate and prosecute but if, through their investigations, [companies] can give us material which is in a form that we recognise, and cuts down our workload, I do not see anything wrong with that."

The arrangement did not reflect the level of police resourcing.

Pictured: Police Comissioner Peter Doone.