Senior police manager alleges 'boys' club' culture among Northland detectives

RNZ News

6 days ago

By By Shannon Pitman, Open Justice multimedia journalist of
Detectives from the Northland CIB team have been giving evidence this week about allegations of bullying another staff member.
Photo:
NZME
A senior police manager alleges she was met with swirling gossip, private group chats and a pervasive "boys' club" culture when she stepped into a leadership role overseeing the predominantly male detective team in Northland.
The allegations now form the basis of an Employment Relations Authority (ERA) hearing in Whangārei this week.
Bridget Louise Doell, a senior police officer with three decades of experience, was seconded to the crime area manager role in 2020, overseeing senior detectives in the criminal investigation branch (CIB) at Whangārei police station.
The role involves operational oversight of inspectors, but Doell's evidence has been that the transition was met with resistance.
Over the next three years, she claims she was sidelined by detectives, describing a toxic workplace culture marked by gossip, exclusion from key decisions, and repeated allegations of bullying.
Doell said she eventually took a secondment to Auckland because she felt she could no longer run a district while detectives were speaking negatively about her behind her back.
She filed a personal grievance against the Police Commissioner, seeking damages for humiliation.
"I felt really duped," she said through tears at the hearing.
Authority member Andrew Gane has heard evidence from several detective inspectors and former Northland district commander Superintendent Tony Hill.
Former Northland district commander Superintendent Tony Hill.
Photo:
RNZ / Simon Rogers
Doell has given a statement saying she was never formally welcomed into the role or introduced to key stakeholders, such as Mike Smith, who was the Northland Crown Solicitor at the time.
In one case, she said she tried to contact Smith for six months to discuss a case, but never heard back from him.
Smith told the authority it wasn't his decision to lay charges and, by the time a meeting was held about the case, other detective inspectors had been assigned.
Doell alleges that, when detective inspectors Shane Pilmer and Dene Begbie met the Crown on her case, they had gone over her head.
"I felt Dene interjected more than he should. He should have left it to me to meet with the Crown."
Her lawyer, Maria Dew, KC, questioned Smith on whether he had intentionally avoided her phone calls, suggesting it may have been because of disparaging remarks made by Begbie.
Smith denied the claim.
"The only conversation I could recall was he sang her praises - said she's come from Auckland, it's a step up," Smith said.
He said Begbie had suggested he meet Doell but, when pressed by Dew, Smith conceded the meeting never happened and he could not recall why.
Inspector Al Symonds gave evidence around a period in 2022 while he was acting area commander and sharing an office with Doell.
Doell returned from a conference in Auckland to find her desk broken and her personal belongings gathered in a box on the floor outside the office.
Symonds, who was temporarily in the role for only four months, gave evidence that he had moved her desk to reach cables and it had collapsed. He said he believed he needed privacy in his role and could not share an office.
Dew put to him that it was a humiliating experience for Doell, just one of many.
When Superintendent Tony Hill heard about the incident, he recognised it would have been humiliating and allegedly told Symonds to apologise. But Symonds said he never received that request and had nothing to apologise for.
It was around this time that a workplace survey was released on the Northland CIB, which highlighted its negative culture.
"I'd heard about personality clashes. It was gossip I didn't pay attention to," Symonds said.
"Had you heard anything about Bridget's behaviour?" Dew asked.
"Not specifically," Symonds responded.
The authority member asked Symonds about his view of the culture at the time, to which he responded that there was a lot of hurt going on.
"It's not Bridget that was doing that, it wasn't directed at her. There was a lot of stuff going on that I think had to be fixed," Symonds said.
The authority member then asked Symonds whether he recognised that the desk incident could have made her feel humiliated.
"Well, I can't say what she felt. It wasn't my intention."
Throughout the hearing, statements have been made about Detective Inspector Joshua Lautogo's strained relationship with Doell, including an alleged incident in which he was witnessed bad-mouthing Doell "with hate in his eyes".
The staff member who witnessed Lautogo's alleged outburst reported the incident up the chain. However, when Lautogo gave evidence, he said the incident never occurred.
Evidence was put to Lautogo that he had been making disparaging remarks about Doell, specifically in text messages to Detective Inspector Kevan Verry.
"It's born out of my frustration at the time in dealing with Bridget, and it is an example of managing up and expressing frustration to my direct supervisor," Lautogo said.
He felt as though Doell was systematically targeting him and, when he raised questions, he was misconstrued as being argumentative.
Lautogo told the authority he ended up leaving because he could no longer work with Doell.
Detective Inspectors Verry, Rhys Johnson, Geoff McCarthy and David Lynch have also given evidence.
The case finished on Friday, with a decision to be released at a later date.
-This story originally appeared in the
New Zealand Herald
.