A senior Dunedin detective's involvement in a case he had no official role in, and which ultimately led to a confession being thrown out of court, did not meet good practice, the Independent Police Conduct Authority says.
Detective Senior Sergeant Kallum Croudis. File photo Photo: RNZ / Ian Telfer
The authority accepts detective Senior Sergeant Kallum Croudis showed no malice or bad faith in the case but some of his actions fell short.
In April 2016, a 39-year-old man died in his sleep after injecting morphine.
The man, referred to as Mr W, is from a well-known Dunedin family and has permanent name suppression - obtained the morphine from a woman - known as Ms X, and from another well-known Dunedin family - while at her home.
He fell asleep on the woman's couch after taking the drug, and the woman and her partner - Gary Potter - went to bed.
The next morning they discovered the man's lifeless body and called emergency services, the IPCA report said.
The on-call detective sergeant went to the home and was accompanied by Mr Croudis, who knew the deceased's father and was long-time customer of his store.
The pair told police some of Ms X's morphine had gone missing overnight.
A post-mortem revealed the 39 year old died after his oesophagus ruptured.
Mr Croudis believed police needed to do more work to fully uncover the circumstances of the man's death, and did not believe Ms X and Potter were being truthful to attending officers about how Mr W obtained the morphine.
In the following days the detective and Ms X bumped into each other at a supermarket while he was off-duty, during this encounter he told her he was not comfortable with her version of events.
She called him two days later requesting a meeting at her home. Mr Croudis reiterated he did not believe the couple's explanation and that they needed to tell the truth.
On 29 April, 2016, he visited the couple's home and discussed matters with them. They admitted lying to attending officers.
Mr Croudis told them he would arrange for the couple to give formal statements. The detective made no notes of any of these three encounters with Ms X or her partner.
During her formal interview on 6 May, Ms X admitted assisting Mr W with preparing the morphine and that it was injected into his arm by Potter.
The pair were charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act with Potter pleading guilty and being given a sentence of home detention.
About four months later, in preparation for a pre-trial hearing and at the request of the prosecutor, Mr Croudis finally prepared a job sheet detailing what the pair told him during the meeting at their home.
In May last year, Judge Michael Crosbie ruled Ms X's statement was inadmissible in its entirety and was not truly voluntary due in part to Mr Croudis' interactions with her.
The judge criticised the detective's vague role in the investigation, his absence of file notes, his failure to meet disclosure obligations, his "casual approach" during the investigation, and that he had "something" of a conflict in interest owing to his relationship with the deceased's father.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority, in its decision released last week, cleared Mr Croudis of any such conflict of interest and was satisfied the relationship "did not extend beyond customer-related contacts and unplanned encounters".
The judge's comments about the conflict of interest could be "characterised as incidental and not as a finding", the authority said.
However, it did criticise some aspects of the investigation.
"In relation to [Mr Croudis'] role in the investigation into Mr W's death, the authority finds it was unclear and not in accordance with standard practice," the decision said.
"Officer A was the most senior officer involved, and contributed to the investigation at various points leading up to Ms X's interview. However, he was not the officer in charge of the investigation and it was not entirely clear to the authority who was."
In regards to his contact with Ms X and Mr Potter, Mr Croudis told the authority they contacted him and he was "not inclined to brush them away" and he wanted to be empathetic towards them.
The authority accepted that was the case and found Mr Croudis showed no malice or bad faith with his involvement in the case.
"The authority finds that there were aspects of [Mr Croudis'] involvement that did not meet good practice, particularly given his rank and experience," the decision said.
Police carried out an employment investigation as a result of the judge's criticisms and Mr Croudis received a disciplinary sanction.
However, police declined a request to be interviewed about the matter and would disclose what sanction took place.
Instead a statement attributed to Southern district commander Superintendent Paul Basham said:
"New Zealand Police note the findings of the IPCA report and the areas highlighted for improvement.
"We recognise the importance of taking comprehensive notes during an investigation and this issue has been highlighted with the Detective Senior Sergeant in question.
"An employment investigation has been completed."
Mr Croudis has a long working history in Dunedin's CIB and notably was the detective who arrested David Bain following the slaying of his immediate family in 1994.