Dear New Zealand Police,

I would like to request the following information about the video clip available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A5GZeVG....

The video clip shows a bus operated by Metlink failing to stop for a red light, which is an offence under Land Transport (Road User) Rule section 3.2 (5). Directly behind the bus was a Police vehicle who did not pursue the offender.

The time of the offence was 17 Oct 2018, 7:37pm. The location was Willis St by Chews Lane, Wellington. The bus route number was route 52. Unfortunately the quality of the camera did not pick up the licence number of either the bus or the Police vehicle. I would imagine that there is staff rosters available to determine what staff were on duty at the time, and also records showing where the staff were at any given time. I would also hope that the Police did infact pursue the offender once safe to do so, and thus there is a case file for the event with all the information requested.

The information requested is:
1) The registration number of the Police vehicle
2) The name and badge numbers of the officers in the Police vehicle
3) Whether they performed a traffic stop of the offender, and if so
a) A full report of that traffic stop
b) Whether the driver of the bus had any prior driving behaviour reports known by the Police
c) A copy of the notebook page(s) used by the Police in regards to this traffic stop.
4) If no traffic stop was performed, then
a) Any follow up with the offender
b) Any Police report about the offence
c) A copy of the notebook page(s) used by the Police in regards to this traffic infringement.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

I just received a reply from your noreply address in regards to an OIA request I made on Feb 19 2019. Your response implied that you were not accepting my OIA request, and were instead redirecting me to this page (http://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/reque...) to make a request. I will note that the Ombudsman has given advice that OIA requests can be made in any form and communicated by any
means (see s 12(1AA) of the Official Information Act, and page 3 of the PDF at http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/syste...).

As such, please acknowledge that you have received my OIA request and are processing it. In regards to s 12(1) of the OIA, I am a NZ citizen residing in Brooklyn, Wellington. This request was made on Feb 19 2019, and a valid response under the OIA must be sent within 20 working days of the next day. This will mean that a response is required by March 19 2019.

Side note, I have noticed that OIA requests to the NZ Police are quite often ignored, redirected to your online form, or asked to be requested again. Can you please ensure that you have appropriate processes in place for handling OIA requests. You have a legal obligation to do so under the Official Information Act. I should remind you that the NZ Police are not above the law.

Original request (requested on Feb 19 2019, due March 19 2019):
I would like to request the following information about the video clip available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A5GZeVG...

The video clip shows a bus operated by Metlink failing to stop for a red light, which is an offence under Land Transport (Road User) Rule section 3.2 (5). Directly behind the bus was a Police vehicle who did not pursue the offender.

The time of the offence was 17 Oct 2018, 7:37pm. The location was Willis St by Chews Lane, Wellington. The bus route number was route 52. Unfortunately the quality of the camera did not pick up the licence number of either the bus or the Police vehicle. I would imagine that there is staff rosters available to determine what staff were on duty at the time, and also records showing where the staff were at any given time. I would also hope that the Police did infact pursue the offender once safe to do so, and thus there is a case file for the event with all the information requested.

The information requested is:
1) The registration number of the Police vehicle
2) The name and badge numbers of the officers in the Police vehicle
3) Whether they performed a traffic stop of the offender, and if so
a) A full report of that traffic stop
b) Whether the driver of the bus had any prior driving behaviour reports known by the Police
c) A copy of the notebook page(s) used by the Police in regards to this traffic stop.
4) If no traffic stop was performed, then
a) Any follow up with the offender
b) Any Police report about the offence
c) A copy of the notebook page(s) used by the Police in regards to this traffic infringement.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Just a friendly reminder that this request is due by end of March 19th. Your automatic response implies that you may not have sent it on to the relevant team so you may want to do that sooner rather than later. I also will point out that you have received it given the automatic response, and the counter starts from there, and it is not my fault that it was not forwarded to the correct team in a timely manner.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Attention Barry Billows

Hi Barry,

Just to make sure you have the request correct, there was no crash as you mentioned in your headline for my request. My request did not mention a crash, only a red light runner that Police witnessed. If there is a crash in your records, then I would love to know about it, but as far as I'm aware there was no crash.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Hi Barry,

Thanks for that. Shame that the Police can't determine where there staff or vehicles are on a given day. I wonder if the response would have been different if it was a worse crime that the officers witnessed...

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport