Call for inquiry into 'problematic' police use of private investigators

Friday, 14 September 2018

There are calls for the inquiry into government agency links with controversial private investigation firm Thompson & Clark to be expanded to also take in the police, after a Stuff Circuit investigation exposed a long history of contact between police and the company.

'It's completely extraordinary that the police are not covered by the inquiry into Thompson & Clark,' said Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman.

It was revealed in March that Thompson & Clark was spying on Greenpeace and that the information was passed on to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

Further revelations that Thompson & Clark spied on Canterbury earthquake claimants for Crown-owned Canterbury rebuild company Southern Response prompted the Government to order the State Services Commission (SSC) inquiry.

Also facing questions are the Department of Conservation and the SIS, which, like MBIE and Southern Response, fall under the SSC and its Standards of Integrity and Conduct.

Now, there are questions over whether the SSC investigation is adequate, with the revelations in the Stuff Circuit documentary Unseen.

Norman says connections between the company and police should be looked at.

When police undertake surveillance there is oversight, from the judicial warrant system, for instance.

'Thompson & Clark don't go through any of those processes,' says Norman. 'They pay people who then turn up at groups and pretend to care about whatever the issue is and then if they're passing that information on to the New Zealand police without ever getting any proper judicial oversight of what the police are up to, that is very problematic.'

Thompson & Clark director Gavin Clark declined to be interviewed, saying: 'We don't comment on operational matters other than to say that we operate within the law and comply with the industry standards and code of conduct.'

A source has told Stuff Circuit that police were collaborating with Thompson & Clark to monitor animal activists as long ago as the early 2000s, and that at one point they were even sharing a paid informant.

Rochelle Rees, who was heavily involved in Auckland Animal Action, said she was aware Thompson & Clark had been monitoring the group's activities several times, and in 2010 had put a tracking device on a car belonging to a member of the group.

She said she had tried previously under the Official Information Act to confirm links between the police and Thompson & Clark, but 'the police refused to hand me any information'.

However, Rees' OIA requests did establish that police paid a Thompson & Clark-related company $200,000 for security services at Pike River and several other incidents, including a fatal plane crash.

Another response elicited that Gavin Clark 'may have had involvement with investigations into political activists' during his 13 years with the police.

But police refused to answer Rees' questions about whether they and Thompson & Clark shared information, saying the question was too broad.

'I think the police have to be open about their dealings with Thompson & Clark,' she said.

She also said police should not be having those dealings in the first place.

'The police having an ongoing relationship with Thompson & Clark – particularly if they're working together on surveillance and stifling protest – is really problematic.'

Norman said Greenpeace had also made Official Information Act requests of the police in an effort to establish whether there were links between Thompson & Clark and the police – as well as MBIE – over the firm's spying on Greenpeace.

'We asked for copies of emails from Thompson & Clark to the police where Greenpeace was the subject of those emails,' said Norman.

'The police refused to release the information on the basis that there was too much of it.

'They said just looking at a single email address showed many hundreds of emails that met that search criteria.'

Police also refused to answer questions from Stuff Circuit about whether they had received or paid for information from Thompson & Clark about Auckland Animal Action.

The inquiry into government agency links with Thompson & Clark is being run by the State Services Commission, and the police are excluded because they operate independently.

But Norman and Rees are now calling for the Government to broaden the inquiry so that it also takes in the police.

'There's no reason the Government can't do a bigger inquiry that goes further than the SSC,' said Rees.