But instead of releasing all the information, police trick-fed the person over a period of almost six years, in a process that police now acknowledge was seriously flawed.
This week, the Human Rights Review Tribunal ordered police to pay the person $50,000 and release the transcript of an interview police conducted with the alleged abuser, and to provide reasons why officers never filed charges against the alleged abuser. abuser had submitted.
It was primarily this transcript that the individual, whose identity was suppressed by the tribunal, had been seeking for years in the hope of gaining closure on two incidents they say occurred in 2011.
According to the tribunal's ruling, the claimant and the alleged abuser were together at the time the sexual offense claim was made.
A second incident occurred the morning after and included an allegation of indecent assault. The tribunal did not elaborate further on the alleged incidents in its ruling.
The complainant went to the police, who said they believed the person's story, but ultimately decided not to press charges because the evidence threshold was not met.
Four years later, the complainant submitted a Privacy Act request to the police to obtain all information the organization had about him. Under New Zealand law, anyone can request information that an organization or company holds about him or her, and it must be released within 20 working days.
However, two months later, police had not released the information and scheduled a meeting where they provided other documentation about the person in their possession, but nothing that referred to the 2011 complaint filed with police after the alleged assault.
During the meeting, the individual made it clear that the decision not to press charges had a serious impact on their mental health and that they were looking for information to help them recover from the trauma they had experienced.
In the following months, police repeatedly requested an extension of the deadline and released parts of the requested information, such as witness statements taken during their investigation.
Among the missing information was a transcript of the suspect's statement to police.
Two years later, police released a spreadsheet with information they said they had already provided but had actually withheld.
Another year later, in late 2019, police still had not provided the transcript. They told the complainant that they were now considering the request under the Civil Service Information Act.
In 2020, the claimant complained to the Privacy Commissioner about the way their request had been handled over the past four years and a further year later the police offered to explain at a face-to-face meeting why they chose not to press charges.
In March 2021, police admitted they couldn't actually tell what information they had released, but suspected they had withheld even more documentation.
However, they insisted they could not release the transcript because it would be an invasion of the alleged abuser's privacy.
The Privacy Commissioner then referred the complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, which held a hearing on the matter in October 2022.
During that hearing, police argued that making public the transcript of the suspect's interview would have been a violation of that person's privacy, especially since the person was not prosecuted.
Police had instead provided a high-level summary that did not specify why charges had not been laid.
A police witness said making public the statements of suspects in sexual assault cases would be “a step change from long-standing police practice and one that could harm the investigative process.”
They further claimed that releasing these types of statements could have a “chilling effect” on future police investigations, with lawyers hypothetically advising their clients to simply not cooperate with police.
On behalf of her client, Maria Dew, KC told the hearing that the primary purpose of accessing the transcript was to assist in her client's therapeutic recovery, which was supported by their counselor.
Her evidence was that following the police decision not to prosecute, her client developed debilitating and serious mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The prosecutor said the information police provided them over the years was useful in finding out what happened to them.
However, because the police withheld information, they were unable to fully process the trauma and this prevented the resolution of their PTSD. They also said that the prolonged release of information had itself become a trauma.
The tribunal said police failed to consider the mental health benefits when disclosing the information to the person, despite being explicitly told this was the person's purpose.
“The alleged invasion of the claimant's privacy occurred in March 2016, but was followed by years of attempts to access the requested information,” the tribunal ruling said.
“With regard to documents provided in additional releases (including after the hearing), there has clearly been unnecessary delay in providing them.”
The tribunal said the police had failed to identify and assess the documents within the scope of the request and showed a poor ability to keep track of what it had already released.
It ordered police to release a redacted version of the transcript, a list of reasons why they did not prosecute the alleged abuser and pay the plaintiff $50,000 in damages.
A police spokesman said the ruling related to a request for personal information made eight years ago.
“Quite independently of this decision, the police have significantly changed the way requests for personal information are handled by the organization since this request was received,” the spokesperson said.
“The police always work hard to comply with Privacy Act requests, and since the complaint was mentioned, the police have established a special information requests team to deal with such requests.
“Police are considering the verdict and no decision has been made on any appeal at this stage.”
The claimant, through counsel, declined to comment to NZME.
By Jeremy Wilkinson,
Multimedia journalist Open Justice,
Palmerston North