Police rule out corruption and theft in gift of alcohol

Police say no corruption or theft was involved in a case where four officers accepted alcohol taken from a crash scene by a tow-truck driver.

Police Minister George Hawkins has confirmed four members of the commercial crash unit accepted a quantity of alcohol from a tow-truck driver as a gift in June last year.

An internal police investigation found it was inappropriate for the officers, part of Manawatu's commercial crash unit, to accept the alcohol - believed to be 16 bottles of spirits.

New Zealand First MP Ron Mark, who obtained the information in written answers to parliamentary questions, said the Government and police needed to come clean about the details of the case so it did not undermine public confidence in the force.

"I struggle to believe this is a one-off and it concerns me that we have an incident where officers from the commercial vehicle investigating unit, who are required to investigate commercial accidents, should be receiving gratuities from tow-truck operators that get the jobs."

Police needed to make it clear whether there was any corruption or theft involved, he said.

A police spokeswoman said yesterday that the towie had not stolen the alcohol from the crashed truck. The vehicle's insurance company had given him the task of cleaning up any produce from the accident scene.

As part of his agreement, he was able to keep some of the alcohol.

The tow-truck driver had been hired by the insurance company and not police, so there was no possible implication that he was providing a kickback to ensure he got crash jobs, said the spokeswoman.

Only one of the four officers had attended the crash. The alcohol was given to the officers later.

She said the four officers had been reprimanded and an adverse employment note placed on their records.

A second internal inquiry was looking at management practices in the crash unit.

- NZPA