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John Bisset / Stuff
The IPCA said it was concerned about the way police detained a mother and daughter. (File photo)
Detaining a family in police cars for nearly two hours after a robbery was illegal, the police watchdog ruled.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) said that while police had legal grounds to detain the family of four during a search of their home, the amount of time the family was detained did not it was reasonable and the manner of his arrest was illegal.
He said he was concerned about the treatment of the mother and daughter, who were not properly dressed after being lifted from their beds.
The IPCA noted that the mother was only wearing a shirt at the time and her daughter a nightgown.
The whole incident unfolded later, in the early hours of February 9, 2019, the police were informed of a robbery with a firearm in a Pakuranga bar.
Police had received a report that two men had used a firearm to rob the bar at around 2:43 am.
Later, police learned of an attempted carjacking in a nearby neighborhood and the Eagle helicopter noticed two men, one of whom had a firearm, and two women in the backyard of a house on the other side of the street of the place of the alleged car theft.
At around 5.12 a.m., the armed criminal squad was deployed and the four family members, two brothers, their sister and their mother, were called out of the house and arrested.
They eventually established that the family had not been involved in the robbery: one of the family members had seen someone run through their backyard and had come out with the firearm to see if anyone was there.
Although the IPCA found that the police had legal grounds to detain the family, being held for periods of time ranging from approximately one hour and 13 minutes to one hour and 48 minutes was unreasonable.
Furthermore, placing the family in the back of police cars was illegal. They should have been detained at the facility.
A representative of the family denounced the IPCA for the arrest of the family, the time they were detained, the breach of their dignity and the lack of police monitoring after the fact.
