50 police employees snooped into file of slain cop Lyn Fleming
Tributes to slain police officer Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming outside the Nelson police station after she was struck by a motor vehicle in the early hours of New Year's Day 2025.
Photo:
NZ Police / RNZ
An
internal police investigation
has revealed 50 employees snooped into the file relating to the death of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming without good reason.
Fleming died after she and fellow officer Adam Ramsay were struck by a vehicle while on foot patrol in the early hours of the morning on New Year's Day in Nelson.
The 62-year-old succumbed to her injuries in the hospital that day, surrounded by her family and Ramsay suffered serious injuries.
Fleming was the first policewoman to be killed in the line of duty in New Zealand. She was also the first police officer to be killed while on duty in Nelson.
A 32-year-old man charged with offences linked to Fleming's death
pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder
earlier this year. His
interim name suppression is still in place
and he's due to appear again in August.
Weeks after Fleming's death, police launched an internal investigation into alleged misuse of an intelligence database called the National Intelligence Application (NIA), which holds sensitive information about incidents and offending, as well as information about the public.
Police employees, including civilian staff, have access to the database, but their use is tracked and audited and they must have a valid work reason for accessing anything within the system.
Following an audit in January, a memo was sent to staff by the Deputy Commissioner of frontline operations Tania Kura, noting that a number of employees had checked the file relating to Fleming's death, but it had no connection to their duties.
"Alarmingly, and disrespectfully, we have found people randomly checking the files on the devastating incident in Nelson," the memo read.
"Unauthorised use of NIA will not be tolerated and final decisions on any sanctions for staff will be decided by a dedicated team."
An Official Information Act request released to NZME confirmed there have been a total of 76 instances of misuse of NIA in 2025.
A total of 116 police employees were investigated as part of the internal audit and 76 staff were found to have a legitimate reason for accessing the file.
The funeral for Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming was held at the Trafalgar Centre in Nelson in January.
Photo:
RNZ / Anthony Phelps
A spokesperson for police said the 50 staff who had misused the system in relation to Fleming's case had accessed both the event file, which holds a running log of information related to an open case, as well as the file for the alleged offender.
"The audit provided an opportunity to remind all staff that NIA searches must be for appropriate reasons," the spokesperson said.
All 50 staff members who accessed the file improperly were issued warnings.
New Zealand Police Association president Chris Cahill said the numbers were a little bit surprising, but not concerning.
"From my understanding, most people were looking to see if they could identify the officer because they were concerned it was someone they knew," he said.
Cahill said it was possible there had been a similar spike after the death of Auckland police officer Matthew Hunt.
"If we look at this nationally, it's not that bad considering how many NIA checks are done every year, hundreds of thousands a year, only to see 60 or so that are seen as inappropriate," he said.
"It shows that things are pretty tight."
Cahill said that a warning was far from a slap on the wrist and was actually quite serious.
"It could be the step before dismissal in some cases."
It is possible for police employees to be criminally charged for misusing NIA. An example is Kayla Watson, who was sentenced to 80 hours of community work after taking photos of files in the system and posting them into a Facebook chat with her friend.
However, few police employees are criminally charged for breaching the terms of use of the database.
For context, there were a total of 79 misuses in 2023, of which only one resulted in a criminal charge. The bulk of the rest resulted in a warning or performance action.
In 2024, there were 65 misuses of NIA, again with the majority being resolved in a similar manner.
Of the 220 alleged misuses of the application in the last three years, 54 incidents are still being investigated.
-This story originally appeared in the
New Zealand Herald
.
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