Background to the Series

Over today, and possibly tomorrow, I am going to make a series of posts drawing on the hundreds of pages released by the Police under the OIA in relation to their decision not to charge Labour with over-spending at the last election. These will include extracts and scans of various letters and reports.

They will all be in the new category of Electoral Act, so that you can click on the series link to see them all together.

I believe that any fair person reading the documents will conclude, as I have, that the Police decision not to prosecute was based on either incompetence or cowardice – not a charge I make lightly. But the documents speak for themselves.

I also point out that this case is not a borderline case, or a marginal call. It was over-whelming.

There have been other cases involving Labour Ministers – specifically Helen Clark, David Benson-Pope, Pete Hodgson, and David Parker. In those cases the decisions made not to prosecute, while debatable, were reasonable decisions to make. I have actually said they were on balance the right decisions. They were certainly decisions on which reasonable people could disagree.

My contention here is that the Police reasoning and decisions in this case are not ones you could reasonably agree with. They have in fact made very basic mistakes throughout. They appear to have done almost no actual investigating or interviewing, and misled the public with their public release.

Anyway don’t take my word for it. Read on, and at the end of the series, come to your own conclusions.