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Former immigration minister Tuariki John Delamere is "flogging a dead horse" by complaining about the police as part of his crusade for justice, a top Auckland officer says.
Detective Inspector Bernie Hollewand this week dismissed a complaint of blackmail made against four high-ranking immigration officials by Mr Delamere, describing it as "absolutely unfounded".
The blackmail complaint was the first step of a raft of legal and civil actions Mr Delamere has undertaken since being acquitted in March of Serious Fraud Office charges relating to an immigration scam.
Mr Delamere responded to Mr Hollewand's decision by filing a complaint about it to the Police Complaints Authority but the detective inspector said he stood by the decision.
"It causes me no disquiet that Mr Delamere intends to ask [the PCA] to review the matter. He would just be another one of the many disappointed people flogging their dead horses at the authority's doorstep."
Mr Hollewand said he had analysed the complaint Mr Delamere laid in March and found "no evidence at all of the offence of blackmail".
Mr Delamere's four-page complaint with appendices claimed that officials had threatened clients with the revocation of their visas for failing to provide information relating to the alleged scam and that people in the immigration service wanted to "shut him up" because he was asking questions about possible bribery.
But Mr Hollewand said the analysis was "so simple, straightforward and illustrative of an unfounded complaint that there was no need to seek advice from the police legal advisers or the crown solicitor's office".
Mr Hollewand, a field crime manager for the Auckland city police district, is an experienced and respected detective who received a police award for heading the investigation into the "samurai sword killer", Antonie Ronnie Dixon.
He said any future complaints Mr Delamere made to police would be treated on their merits, just like anybody else's.
Mr Delamere intends to take action against an array of organisations, including the accounting industry's professional standards body.
