KEY POINTS:
To the many thousands who make it their summer playground, Waiheke is the perfect bolthole from big-city life. Nestled in the protective crook of the Coromandel Peninsula, the island - a 35-minute cruise from Auckland - is protected from the worst of the weather.
But a storm of
a different kind is threatening to do irreparable damage to relationships between some of its 8000 permanent residents.
The causes would make even the most ardent soap opera fan raise an eyebrow: A suspended police officer, rejection of outsiders and claims of a "vendetta" and media bias.
In the eye of the storm are Matt Pearson and his wife Anne-Marie, British ex-pats who swapped urban Birmingham for an island paradise.
Pearson is the officer in question, suspended pending the result of an investigation into alleged inappropriate behaviour.
The constable, who began working on Waiheke early last year, was stood down on full pay a month ago after an alleged incident involving an 18-year-old woman.
By Friday, no formal complaint had been recorded by police, who remain tight-lipped about the specifics of the investigation.
Auckland Police spokesman Noreen Hegarty said there was nothing to add to earlier reports and the officer leading the inquiry did not return calls.
The Herald on Sunday understands staff from the CIB and sexual assault team are involved, and officers have travelled to the island to interview key players, including about 10 of the girl's friends.
But Pearson's wife, Anne-Marie, claims the allegations are "a pack of lies" designed to drive the couple from the island.
Speaking from their home on Wednesday, she said they were victims of a handful of locals with "personal vendettas", keen to force them out of the small, laidback community.
"That was in fact the first thing people said when we arrived, 'this is our island'."
The plot thickened with the revelation that Anne-Marie's work for government science agency ESR had seen her give popular Waiheke vineyard Stoneyridge a well-publicised D grade for food hygiene soon after the couple arrived.
She suspected the rating - overturned after Stoneyridge appealed and regained its A grade - had made her unpopular with some locals, who had nicknamed her the "food Nazi".
Her husband's policing role had irked others, including the publisher of Waiheke Week, the first paper to name him in connection with the inappropriate behaviour allegations.
Pearson arrested Waiheke Week publisher Mervyn Bennett on suspicion of drink driving last September.
On Friday, the suspended cop was in the Auckland District Court in full uniform, flanked by a colleague, as Bennett's lawyer, Barry Hart, argued Pearson's suspension cast doubt on the officer's credibility.
The case was remanded until late November to allow for the Crown response to Hart's submission that the case should be dismissed.
Bennett later denied naming Pearson in retaliation for his arrest. "I didn't even know about the story until I sat down to sub it."
Asked about Pearson's claims that locals were attempting to drive out the couple, Bennett said: "I have heard nothing about that. People aren't like that on Waiheke."
Approached by the Herald on Sunday as he left the courtroom for a cigarette, a zip-up sweatshirt over his uniform, Pearson refused to comment.
His alleged victim also declined to comment, but the Herald on Sunday understands she was planning to leave for Australia this weekend to start a new life with her fiance.
On Wednesday, Anne-Marie Pearson said the couple could not discuss the case with media for several reasons.
Police bosses had forbidden it, specific details of the allegation had not been disclosed and the couple did not want to prejudice future planned civil action.
She said the couple had appointed a solicitor and planned to sue the complainant for defamation once the internal investigation was complete.
The couple accepted authorities had a requirement to take allegations seriously and to go through the proper procedures.
"We will be taking this further. I can't discuss it any more, as much as I would like to. It's all going to come out in the wash over the next couple of weeks."
But she said the allegations had put the couple under a lot of stress.
"I want to go back [to the UK] but Matt doesn't."
Pearson isn't the only Waiheke police officer to hit the headlines.
A former cop on the island, Erin Marsden, made the front page of last week's Truth newspaper, under the heading Bobby Busts Blondie in Bedroom.
The story detailed the three-year battle by a Waiheke woman to have a drink driving charge thrown out.
A court eventually ruled an evidential breath test had been obtained unlawfully because Marsden followed the woman up her driveway, entered her house without a warrant and refused to leave when asked.
The woman told the court he followed her into her bedroom and cuffed her on her couch while her shocked boyfriend looked on.
Several Waihekians spoken to by the Herald on Sunday said the island's police department was overstaffed, and some officers were over-zealous when booking locals for minor offences which were clogging up the court system. A source in the legal profession knew of five cases from Waiheke that had been thrown out over the past few weeks.
All of those charged had been advised to lay complaints with the Independent Police Complaints Authority.
Waiheke Week editor Heather Wright said the island was typical of any small community - once someone had been brought to police attention, they were likely to keep attracting it, because cops and crims were on a first-name basis.
An Auckland lawyer, who lives on the island, said the allegations against Pearson were a "shock" but most Waihekians were remaining "neutral".
"We have to let the powers that be do their job now."