{"id":362280,"date":"2026-04-03T18:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/362280\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:34:21","slug":"police-employee-took-booked-vehicle-on-camping-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/362280\/","title":{"rendered":"Police employee took booked vehicle on camping trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">By Sam Sherwood of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A police employee misused a police vehicle by taking it to go camping with a friend, despite it being booked for a search and rescue exercise, the police watchdog has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The employee&#8217;s actions were revealed when emergency services were called to the van in a no camping, no fishing area after a gas cooker caught fire at the back of the van and caused an explosion.<\/p>\n<p>The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) released a summary of a police investigation it oversaw on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The allegation was that a Christchurch police employee used a police vehicle for &#8220;personal use, knowingly impacting a police search and rescue exercise&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The employee signed out an unmarked police van, overriding an earlier booking for a multi-agency search and rescue exercise. He then used the van to take a civilian friend on an overnight fishing and camping trip.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This deprived the exercise attendees of their transportation and equipment, created logistical issues and forced police to make alternate arrangements at short notice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The IPCA said later that night emergency services were called to the van.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In a no camping, no fishing area after a gas cooker caught fire at the back of the van and caused an explosion. No one was hurt and the van sustained no damage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Police found there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the employee for conversion of the van.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Police found the employee had been &#8220;dishonest&#8221; and that his actions amounted to serious misconduct.<\/p>\n<p>He resigned before an employment process was concluded.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Authority is satisfied with the police investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Police have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sam Sherwood of RNZ A police employee misused a police vehicle by taking it to go camping&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-362280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362280","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=362280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}