According to a summary of facts, just months after becoming a sworn officer, Smith sent her boyfriend the name of someone she described as a \u201csnitch\u201d after arresting the man for minor traffic and theft offences in August 2022.<\/p>\n
During an intelligence-gathering interview conducted by another officer, the suspect disclosed the addresses of West Auckland properties that he believed were being used to manufacture drugs.<\/p>\n
After the meeting, Smith messaged her boyfriend and disclosed the identity of the \u201csnitch\u201d.<\/p>\n
Summer Moana Pearl Smith, 32, has been jailed for leaking confidential police information to her gang member boyfriend.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis name\u2019s [redacted] he was giving intel at work … names of some cook houses out west,\u201d Smith wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust wanted to make sure you\u2019re not linked in with them or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gang member replied that the name didn\u2019t \u201cring a bell\u201d.<\/p>\n
A few months later, Smith leaked more sensitive information to her boyfriend.<\/p>\n
In December 2022, Smith took a photo of the gang member\u2019s profile on the National Intelligence Application (NIA), the police computer system.<\/p>\n
She also took a photo of a list of all the cars and motorcycles linked to him.<\/p>\n
The following month, she sent the screenshots to her boyfriend after he indicated there was a \u201cbit of heat\u201d on him \u2013 despite knowing she could lose her job for making unauthorised NIA checks on the gang member.<\/p>\n
He told Smith he would be \u201cextra cautious\u201d and sell the vehicles to \u201cstay out of jail\u201d.<\/p>\n
Around that same time, Smith also asked her boyfriend for drugs to party on the weekend.<\/p>\n
In a later message, she sent him a photo of a small ziplock bag of cocaine. Smith was at a music festival and shared the Class-A drug with her friends.<\/p>\n
The Killer Beez are a motorcycle gang with a strong presence in Auckland and Northland, with patched members convicted of serious violence and drug offending. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
Three months later, in April 2023, her boyfriend was arrested with other Killer Beez associates following a covert police investigation which stopped a 265kg drug shipment.<\/p>\n
He was charged with importing methamphetamine, supplying the Class-A drug and participating in an organised criminal group, and money-laundering more than $1 million in cash.<\/p>\n
As a result, the police searched his phone and uncovered the messages with Smith.<\/p>\n
When confronted by detectives from the National Integrity Unit in September 2023, Smith confessed to everything.<\/p>\n
She confirmed that she had met the gang member on Tinder before joining the police and was aware of his affiliations to the Killer Beez.<\/p>\n
She told police they were in a sexual relationship and saw each other about once a month. Her actions were \u201cdefinitely wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I shouldn\u2019t be doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she disclosed the informant\u2019s name because of her feeling for her boyfriend, rather than financial reward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI basically fell in love with this f***en gangster dude … I fell for a guy that\u2019s just not the right person.\u201d<\/p>\n
She admitted leaking the NIA information too \u201cbecause I was sleeping with him\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew he was a bit of a bad boy … it was definitely stupid. Um, yeah, ah very f***ed up from me and I shouldn\u2019t have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She resigned the next month and moved to Australia, but was arrested after returning to New Zealand in December 2024.<\/p>\n
\u2018A career choice that just didn\u2019t fit\u2019<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Usha Keller told the court Smith was aware of her boyfriend\u2019s gang links \u201cfrom the outset\u201d and understood the risks of consorting with him.<\/p>\n
While Smith was seeking credit for her lack of previous convictions and good character, her clean record had allowed her to gain employment as a police officer from which she disclosed sensitive and confidential information.<\/p>\n
In terms of remorse, a pre-sentencing report showed Smith appeared to be most concerned about embarrassment to her family and the potential impacts on her own travel and employment prospects, Keller said.<\/p>\n
Smith had said the relationship \u201cgave her excitement\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Crown submitted that a sentence of imprisonment was warranted.<\/p>\n
Riddell said that although the disclosures were intentional, her client was not motivated by greed or malice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more a situation of misguided loyalty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s infatuation with the gang member and a need for \u201cemotional validation\u201d were also key factors, Riddell said.<\/p>\n
Summer Moana Pearl Smith, 32, is a former police constable who has pleaded guilty to criminal charges relating to leaking information to her boyfriend who was a gang member.<\/p>\n
Smith had held down jobs in various industries before joining the police. She was \u201cnot a vindictive person\u201d and the offending was a \u201cblip\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s really made a career choice that just didn\u2019t fit,\u201d Riddell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s lost everything. She\u2019s going to have to start again when all this is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Yelavich said she accepted that Smith passed information to the gang member \u201cbecause you wanted to obtain a closer relationship with him\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou explained falling in love with, quote, \u2018This gangster dude\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The disclosure of an informant\u2019s name to a known gang member was \u201cparticularly serious\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n
So was the breach of trust, given she was a sworn police officer at the time. <\/p>\n
Judge Yelavich set a starting point of three years in prison, before adding three months for the cocaine charge.<\/p>\n
She then gave discounts for Smith\u2019s guilty pleas, previous good character and expressions of remorse.<\/p>\n
The judge said it was \u201centirely speculative\u201d as to whether Smith would suffer difficulties in prison, before sentencing the disgraced former officer to the two years and three months\u2019 jail time.<\/p>\n
Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers said police had no tolerance for corruption and would use \u201call available criminal and employment avenues to hold any such behaviour accountable\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case serves as a reminder about the risks that insider threats pose to our colleagues and wider organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaintaining the trust and confidence of the public is of upmost importance and we will continue to work hard to uphold the standards expected of our staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in the industry.<\/p>\n
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland, Gangster\u2019s Paradise and Underworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smith had earlier pleaded guilty to corrupt use of official information, accessing a computer system for a dishonest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10106,74,1558,73695,16080,73694,3562,65622,2082,2740,1328,142459,172797,9557,14641,14235,18206,6857,90933,1362,28166,111,43,139,69,675,17891,16189,14625,49027,61,102],"class_list":["post-319285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-admitting","tag-after","tag-been","tag-beez","tag-boyfriend","tag-constable","tag-corruption","tag-dude","tag-for","tag-former","tag-gang","tag-gangster","tag-infatuation","tag-intelligence","tag-jailed","tag-killer","tag-leaked","tag-leaking","tag-lover","tag-made","tag-mistake","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-rookie","tag-smith","tag-summer","tag-terrible","tag-to","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}