Retired police want to fill gap

Senior police officers forced into early retirement due to a regulations anomaly are offering their services to help with a backlog of more than 1000 unallocated files, including 14 sex cases.

Rex Miller, a former chief detective inspector, said he was prompted to make the offer after Commissioner Rob Robinson told an interviewer police had little choice but to write to victims of minor crime explaining they lacked staff to investigate.

Mr Miller, who headed the Hamilton CIB, retired in 1999 aged 55. He was one of dozens of senior police caught in a window of several months during which officers had to retire at that age.

Within months of their retirement, a change to the Human Rights Act made it illegal to set an age for retirement.

Other officers who told the Weekend Herald they were willing, able and available were John Bethwaite, who was a superintendent, and former detective senior sergeant Lance Corcoran, who was forced to retire while investigating the unsolved murder of Ashburton teenager Kirsty Bentley, who disappeared while walking her dog on New Year's Eve 1998.

Gary Miller, who voluntarily left the force to work as an insurance fraud investigator, said he believed many private investigators with police background would be willing to assist with the case backlog.

Said Rex Miller: "I feel sorry for the young cops who are on the ground trying to cope."

Putting 50 more cadets through police college would not solve the immediate problem because it would be four or five years before they had the experience to take charge of a case, he said.

"You need to start thinking outside the square to find a remedy, and employing some of these guys who are available could be a start."

The offer had a lukewarm response from police. A spokesman for Mr Robinson said there was a process through which they could apply to rejoin, either as sworn officers with the power of arrest or unsworn staff.

The first step was for them to approach their local district police headquarters.

Police spokesman Jon Neilson likened the process to re-recruiting, which would involve passing criteria such as physical fitness and they might need training, for example, in new laws.

Mr Corcoran, who spent 34 years as a police investigator, has a fulltime job but said he enjoyed police work and would not rule out a return. His retirement, weeks after having passed the police physical, left him feeling "quite embittered".

"The policy was wrong. It got rid of experienced staff and we are seeing the consequences now."

Mr Bethwaite, who works part-time marking police exam papers, said he was proud of the force but disappointed in how it was going.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said the return of retired police might help but it was still just another "Band-Aid" solution.

The fundamental problem was understaffing. He believed police were more efficient than ever but demands on them were "incredible".

Mr O'Connor said New Zealand compared poorly in its population-to-police ratio. Canada, Australia, the United States, England and Wales, Scotland and France had more sworn police per capita.

Scotland, similar in size to New Zealand but with a population of five million, has one police officer for every 321 people, compared with our ratio of one officer per 554 people.

Queensland, also similar in population, has a police officer for every 431 people. Australia's ratio is 1/456.

Mr O'Connor said New Zealand needed 2000 more sworn police to bring it up to Australia's ratio.