Warkworth's celebrity crooked cop culture
Local MP (and now Police Minister) Mark Mitchell
with Warkworth Sergeant Mark Stallworthy, 11 May 2022.
When I filmed the mother of a cop break my nose, several cops told me to not share the footage with Warkworth Police. It wasn't the first time they'd warned me that I was being stitched up.
Beth Houlbrooke was the deputy chair of the Rodney Local Board and deputy leader of the Act Party. She took exception to me lodging a code of conduct complaint with Auckland Council against her for her underhanded tactics against former fling, Councillor Greg Sayers. I was also one of many who'd also caught her red-handed breaching the Covid lockdown rules. To prevent the stories getting out, Houlbrooke asked administrators of her "community" Facebook groups to block me. To silence me, however, she tried to use her contacts in the Warkworth Police to throw me in the cells.
Volunteers wore black t-shirts at an event held in the honour of Warkworth Police
at the Warkworth Town Hall on 11 May 2022. Here is Beth Houlbrooke with another volunteer.
There was a gradual escalation to the false accusations from Houlbrooke. She abused her position on Auckland Council, sending emails to officials falsely accusing me of being a liar and a hacker:
She then falsely accused me of being a bully:
Not getting anywhere using council channels, she then tried to use her police contacts.
The plot was simple. Houlbrooke and her new boyfriend (Aaron Stephenson) turned up to a pub on two occasions, tried to provoke a confrontation with me when no one else was looking, and then tried to attribute blame to me - using their friend Duncan Powell as an "independent witness." Other people noticed that the freshly loved-up couple avoided the CCTV cameras. When their plot backfired, others heard her shout:
"The Police will believe me!
I'm Beth Houlbrooke!"
There was no doubt in anyone's minds that evening what her plot was meant to achieve. Both incidents occurred on a Saturday night and Houlbrooke wanted me thrown in the cells for the weekend. I couldn't believe what I was hearing so I asked four friends who were either current or former Warkworth cops. They weren't surprised.
Houlbrooke did rely on Warkworth Police to believe her over all the other people who witnessed her antics. In the following days, I lodged a restraining order with the court.
I then lodged an information request with Auckland Council, asking for all mentions of me in Houlbrooke's correspondence, stating that I needed the information for court proceedings. Instead, the local board manager, Louise Mason, granted an extension until after the court date so she could "consult" with Houlbrooke. Finally, Louise Mason released the highly redacted emails where Houlbrooke described me as a hacker, liar, and a bully. Basically, Houlbrooke relied on her council connections to frustrate my legal action against her.
Instead of filing evidence with the court to defend her actions, Houlbrooke instead sent this email to Warkworth Officer in Charge Sergeant Mark Stallworthy and Mahurangi Police Station Community Constable Senior Constable Hamish Buick:
In her email to the police, Houlbrooke had clearly escalated her smear campaign to portray me as violent, attaching to her email this 1994 newspaper clip taken from my website:
She also attached a dossier prepared by Stu Wilson, who at the time was the Act Party campaign manager and is currently the "Senior Advisor" to David Seymour:
Stu Wilson, here seen in the left of this picture.
Stu Wilson is no stranger to dirty politics. He features extensively in my book, Unleashed. While Rodney Hide's ministerial advisor, he spread rumours that Jordan Williams was Don Brash's love child during the coup by Don Brash to overthrow Rodney Hide. Here is Stu Wilson again, this time at a violent Act campaign event:
Courtesy: Newshub.
One cameraman from Newshub was hit in the face by an older woman and another visual journalist was struck by ACT signs… ACT supporters were also abusing members of the media, hitting cameras with signs as they surrounded [the heckler], attempting to block them from filming the protest. Some of the abuse was captured on camera.
Houlbrooke often falsely accused male political opponents of sexism and misogyny. Such accusations emboldened her female supporters in the council and community.
"Older women"
After Houlbrooke's botched stitch up attempts, she could rely on other violent and manipulative older women to achieve her goal to silence me. Besides, they had tried it before. Here is a selection of six from Snells Beach:
Clockwise from top left: Michele MacKenzie, Jenny Bartlett, Kay Flower,
Diane Taylor, Lorraine Martin, June Turner.
Literally hundreds of pages of Unleashed are dedicated to the false accusations that older women bombarded the Police and Auckland Council with. By the time that I published Unleashed, there were 11,558 mentions of my name in Auckland Council computer systems.
Here is a summary of who they are.
Michele MacKenzie is the self-anointed head of the Snells Beach bird lobby. To spite the developers of Boathouse Bay that evicted her friend, she went behind Houlbrooke's back to impose dog bans using dodgy evidence. When I exposed her official correspondence, she then laid two complaints with police against me, knowing the claims to be false. On several occasions she was violent - even in front of Senior Constable Hamish Buick.
Kay Flower was Snells Beach's Neighbourhood Support co-ordinator. She followed me and took a photograph of me removing an expired temporary dog ban sign. Despite finding out that I had arranged the removal with the council, months later she supported MacKenzie's false accusation with the Police.
Jenny Bartlett took over from Kay Flower as Neighbourhood Support co-ordinator. Jenny just happened to live across the road from Sergeant Mark Stallworthy and made sure everyone knew it. Described as "a toxic manipulative narcissistic gossip monger", she was accused by several people of stalking and filming people. She was often seen patrolling on her e-bike along the esplanade and filming people:
Houlbrooke and fellow Act candidate Phelan Pirrie set up Facebook groups for each community when they ran for the Rodney Local Board. After they were accused of blocking political opponents, Jenny Bartlett took over the administration of this group:
After I lodged the restraining order against Houlbrooke & Co, Jenny Bartlett took it upon herself to stalk and film me. During the space of half an hour, she would ride her e-bike past me as often as six times, each time calling out my name. She was obsessed with me. After I changed the route that I walked my dog, she changed her route to look for me. After I blocked her online, it became clear what her goal was all along:
So, with me blocked from the local Facebook groups, Houlbrooke could continue her agenda.
June Turner's agenda closely aligned to Houlbrooke's. June set up the SBRRA, was a Rodney Councillor, and was a member of the Rodney Local Board. Still pretending to be a council official, she lodged bogus complaints with the council and ran vigilante patrols at the northern end of Snells Beach. June wanted dogs to instead use Goodall Reserve and Te Whau walkway:
June Turner with Rodney Local Board members Greg Sayers and Beth Houlbrooke
at the opening of the Te Whau walkway.
Sayers and Houlbrooke were having an affair at 9 Sunburst Avenue, Snells Beach. Sayers made the boatramp outside this house the boundary for dog bans. The decision was made at the last minute and without public consultation. The only people who asked for the rules were his neighbours. He never disclosed these conflicts of interests.
On 5 September 2021, Jenny Bartlett stopped to ask several people for details about me and my dog. On 9 September 2021, someone unleashed my dog from a fence on Snells Beach esplanade, June Turner took a photo, lodged a complaint with the council using my personal information that wasn't publicly available, and I was issued with a $300 fine - which was later waived. When I complained to the council that June was impersonating officials, a senior council official said such allegations was a "police matter." Despite several complaints to police, Buick took no action.
Diane Taylor was a perpetual committee member of SBRRA, being responsible for liaising with Neighbourhood Support and the bird lobby. She previously managed the Citizens Advice Bureau but then became the co-ordinator of volunteers at Mahurangi Police Station. She was also Greg Sayers' neighbour. With a violent temperament, she earned the nickname "Local Little Hitler." Taylor physically attacked people. One victim described her as a "charging hippopotamus." Diane Taylor justified her actions, telling victims that she "worked for the police." With the police on speed dial, police would respond to her whims.
So, I wasn't surprised that the day after I published an article about Diane Taylor's, June Turner's, and Beth Houlbrooke's antics that Lorraine Martin would visit Taylor, follow me, attack me, throw her camera at me, and then return to the Taylor's home to make a 111 call, falsely claiming that I assaulted and robbed her. It was the sixth of nine attempts to stitch me up. I photographed the incident, rang a police colleague to inform them of what happened, and I was told to not show my evidence to the Warkworth Police.
The day after I was charged, council officials Louise Mason and Rachel Kelleher blocked the release of incriminating email conversations between Beth Houlbrooke and her vigilantes, citing "safety" concerns.
So, here's a rundown:
I had a restraining order against Houlbrooke;
Houlbrooke told police that I was violent;
Houlbrooke's associates then escalated their harassment campaign against me;
Houlbrooke's associates then -
Unleashed my dog, resulting in a fine;
Repeated the stunt but threw a camera at me, resulting in me being charged with assault and robbery;
Repeated the stunt a third time in an attempt to get my dog destroyed;
Continued to follow me and harass me to get me held in remand until my trial;
Houlbrooke used her council connections to obstruct the release of evidence incriminating her;
Warkworth Police redacted the Houlbrooke email making false allegations against me; and
Houlbrooke associates blocked me from all the community Facebook groups administered by Houlbrooke's associates.
Without knowing about Houlbrooke's email to Stallworthy and Buick, I withdrew my restraining order and lodged a more serious complaint of criminal harassment against Houlbrooke and her associates. Here is the complaint:
This online complaint does not appear in the Police National Intelligence Application (NIA) database, yet all the unsubstantiated complaints made against me do. What are the Police hiding?
How senior police responded
Neighbourhood Support operated out of the Mahurangi Police Station in Snells Beach. I was concerned that unsupervised volunteers abused their connections with police. Afterall, the station was re-opened in September 2017 only after the public were reassured that Senior Constable Hamish Buick would run the station.
But this wasn't the case. I lodged the following letter to the Police Commissioner, asking for the Mahurangi Police Station to be closed, with at least the police signage removed:
Here are the senior police officers who dealt with my complaint:
Clockwise from top left:
Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers,
Waitemata District Commander, Superintendent Naila Hassan,
Rodney Commander, Inspector Matt Laurenson,
Mahurangi Community Constable, Senior Constable Hamish Buick.
The complaint was first handled by the Commissioner's assistant on 27 April 2022. Passing it down the chain of command, the first to take any action was Inspector Matt Laurenson on 29 April 2022, who sent this three-sentence fob-off letter, where he claimed that the station was "important and well used":
Inspector Laurenson thought that the issue had been contained. But I followed up.
There were serious allegations in my letter to the Commissioner. I asked again whether he took the allegations seriously:
The email was again passed down the chain of command:
Inspector Laurenson then wrote this:
Laurenson went to as much effort to address my concerns as he did trying to spell my name correctly.
My complaint was about vigilantes making false accusations against me. According to Inspector Laurenson, those false allegations were grounds to not take my complaint seriously. I had been charged based on evidence from vigilantes connected to the Mahurangi Police Station, my lawyer had told police that those vigilantes were harassing me and perverting the course of justice, and yet the harassment escalated. How much of an escalation would be necessary for my complaints to be taken seriously by Police?
But what is important is that vigilantes were operating out of Mahurangi Police Station unsupervised. Instead of properly investigating my complaint, Inspector Laurenson looked for any excuse to dismiss the complaint.
Note the dates of the emails above. It was only after an official information request that I discovered that there was an entirely different string of conversations going on by senior police behind my back. Shortly after Inspector Laurenson sent his fob-off letter, Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers sent this email:
The "compelling evidence" stitched together by Warkworth Police didn't convince a jury. The fact that I filmed the incident and was told by other Warkworth police officers to not share it until the trial is a pretty big red flag.
Superintendent Naila Hassan then told Inspector Laurenson this:
If there was "abit of history", wouldn't that warrant some further inquiry?
In response, Inspector Laurenson sent this email:
Only days prior, Laurenson told me that the facility was "important and well used", yet in internal correspondence stated that Buick visited "on occasion" and Stallworthy worked there "every now and then."
Laurenson had significant bias in his argument, not me. I stated facts. Laurenson lied.
Who was really running the police station?
Buick's Bias
Hamish Buick was emboldened enough to ring me on 10 May 2022 and gloat for over five minutes that he wouldn't do anything about my complaints. He even told me to "smile and wave" at anyone who harassed me. He made no secret that he and Stallworthy had actively encouraged people to harass me. I ended the call, but not before I called him a crooked cop.
The following evening, Beth Houlbrooke and Mark Mitchell were volunteers at a chamber of commerce event held in the Police's honour. Speaking at the event was Inspector Laurenson. Schmoozing with Mark Mitchell were Stallworthy and Buick:
It was plain to see where loyalties lay and how the police were perceived in the community:
Mark Stallworthy's neighbours got really worked up on social media:
Can you imagine a situation where Inspector Laurenson and Senior Constable Buick closed the Mahurangi Police Station the day before they attended an event held by One Mahurangi in their honour?
Enter Sergeant Dan McDermott
Warkworth Police Station Officer in Charge, Sergeant Dan McDermott.
In November 2023, Sergeant Mark Stallworthy was transferred to North Shore. The following month, Warkworth-raised Sergeant Dan McDermott was transferred from Rodney HQ in Orewa to take his place. McDermott was welcomed with open arms, where he promised:
Over the last two weeks, Warkworth Police, in conjunction with One Mahurangi, has held community meetings with local business owners in both our CBD and industrial areas. It’s been great to connect with business owners in such a setting and hear their feedback on how we can best serve them.
On 9 February 2024, I was acquitted.
On 15 February 2024, I lodged a complaint against Lorraine Martin for assaulting me, mentioning Diane Taylor in my complaint. Attached to the complaint was photographic and medical evidence from my trial and a letter from my lawyer stating:
"We suggest this is dealt with by Police from outside Warkworth given the history of the case."
Also on 15 February 2024, windows at Warkworth Police Station were smashed.
On 22 February 2024, Sergeant Dan McDermott sent the following email to someone outside the Police organisation:
He then sent the following email to someone within the Police organisation:
Excuse me? Did you say that Buick allowed untrained and unvetted volunteers to open a police station that had a Police radio and computer in it?
The letter continued:
The 'Volunteer' co-ordinator at the meeting was Diane Taylor. For a person who told anyone who would listen that she "worked for the Police", McDermott put her straight that she didn't. She then had the audacity to say that she would "continue to have volunteers."
But what is so fascinating is that a female was upset that the police computer was removed. No female police officers used Mahurangi Police Station. Only female 'volunteers.' Who used the Police computer?
The letter concluded:
Despite these plans to close the station, remove police equipment and signage, and inform the media, none of these happened. Why?
For a start, this was the response from Waitematā North Relieving Area Commander, Senior Sergeant Roger Small:
"Aghast"?
Isn't it interesting that as soon as Sergeant Mark Stallworthy and Inspector Matt Laurenson aren't in the loop that the new sergeant and acting area commander found out what Buick was up to?
Inspector Matt Laurenson then responded with this email:
It was clear that 'volunteers' thought that they worked for the police, had access to their resources, but Laurenson still wanted the Police signage on a facility used by other groups.
Buick had a lot of explaining to do. Someone outside the Police organisation suggested what Buick could do:
Did Buick stick to the script?
Buick didn't address the "charging hippopotamus" in the room, fudging over the monster he created.
Anyway,1News got hold of the emails:
The morning after this article rang, locals saw a van outside the Mahurangi Police Station being loaded up with equipment:
Jenny Bartlett then blocked any mention of the 1News article on groups that she administered:
No reason was given for deleting this post but a warning was issued. No group rules were broken.
Make no mistake, Neighbourhood Support volunteers behaved like a law unto themselves, treating the area as their own private fiefdom:
And Sergeant Mark Stallworthy was their personal sheriff. Here is Stallworthy using his Facebook pseudonym "Mark Smith" getting involved in trolling the 1News item, revealing his political leanings:
How bad could this look?
Celebrity Cop Culture
Police are meant to be professional, impartial, and apolitical. Warkworth Police are none of those things. In fact, they are treated like celebrities.
Every year, Toastmasters holds a Kowhai Festival Great Debate. Toastmasters is headed by Murray Chapman, who runs the local chamber of commerce, One Mahurangi. One Mahurangi is a Business Improvement District (BID), which is effectively a form of compulsory membership of a chamber of commerce. Every business in the area is charged a targeted rate by the council, which funds Murray's salary.
Anyway, central to the theme of the debate is squaring off the local police against local politicians (such as Beth Houlbrooke) and celebrities (such as Hayley Holt).
Senior Constable Jon Williams, Sergeant Mark Stallworthy, and Murray Chapman
flip a coin for the Great Debate.
Previous moots for debates included “It must be true, it’s in the media.”
For the 2024 event, they changed the theme, calling it "The Great Comedy Debate." When TV3 and Q Theatre hosted an identically-named debate, teams comprised of comedians. In Warkworth, however:
That's right. Buick is in a debate where the topic is "Experience is better than enthusiasm."
Many Warkworth community members and businesses openly try to gain favour or be associated with the Warkworth Police:
Warkworth Police were also active in community initiatives alongside politicians, iwi, and business leaders:
Springboard receives the majority of its funding from the Ministry of Social Development, based largely on the number of youth sent their way. This creates the avoidable situation where Police unnecessarily find themselves in positions where they are sheriff, judge, jury, executioner, and ambassador:
Others can build their public profile based on their association with Police:
Let's not overlook that Mark Mitchell brought in Cameron Slater and Simon Lusk to undermine the process to select a National Party candidate in Rodney. Central to their strategy was pushing Mitchell's police credentials. Here is a leaked Facebook Messenger conversation between the two strategists:
When these conversations appeared in Nicky Hager's book Dirty Politics, Mark Mitchell contended that the narrative was completely false. Cameron Slater said that they were taken out of context. In my book Unleashed, I include all the conversations to include the full context. Make no mistake, it was yet another example of a Rodney politician trying to project and protect a positive profile while others close to them did their dirty work.
Mark Mitchell was effectively portrayed as a celebrity cop to became the local Member of Parliament in an electorate that he knew glamorised cops. He then became close with those celebrity cops - the same cops that other politicians relied on to "believe" them.
The problem with police being around so many community figures is that their perceived impartiality can come into question. When faced with a complaint against people they frequently socialised and worked with, how would they handle the perceived conflict of interest?
Crooked Culture
Throughout Unleashed, there are chapters dedicated to dubious conduct by Warkworth Police. I will focus on one incident.
In short, a Warkworth Police officer with no specialised intelligence training used questionable intelligence to conduct an illegal search of private premises and then shared the illegally obtained personal information so that the person could be "moved on":
Here are the full findings of the IPCA:
Superintendent Naila Hassan played down the IPCA's findings, stating:
Following my acquittal, I lodged a complaint against Lorraine Martin and Diane Taylor. Lorraine Martin is the mother of senior police manager David Martin. Officer in charge Detective Constable Jacqueline Fairbrass visited Lorraine Martin at Diane Taylor's home but didn't mention Diane Taylor's name in her notebook. Fairbrass then redacted any mention of Diane Taylor's name from police evidence, including the 111 call where Taylor can clearly be heard in the background telling Lorraine Martin what to say.
My lawyer had also lodged a complaint against Lorraine Martin and Lois McPherson, who had obviously perverted the course of justice.
The evidence presented at the trial challenged the accounts and motives of several witnesses, including Lorraine Martin, SBRRA vigilante Paul Shanahan, and three witnesses who claiming to be "independent." How Fairbrass gathered evidence was also a relevant consideration. It was for these reasons that my lawyer asked that Warkworth Police not be allowed anywhere near the investigation of my complaint.
Late on a Friday afternoon, however, none other than Sergeant Dan McDermott sent this email:
For a start, I did not ask for a "review." I lodged a complaint and made reference to trial evidence that was convincing enough for a jury to acquit. Instead, McDermott only considered the evidence that I attached to my complaint, which the police website limited to only a few attachments.
So, McDermott only considered the evidence that I could attach to an online complaint, including a letter from my lawyer asking him to not be involved with the investigation, clearly stating the reasons why.
McDermott then dismissed medical evidence showing that the corner of an object broke my nose. Photographic evidence presented at trial showed that Lorraine Martin had attacked me with the sharpest corner of her camera:
But McDermott preferred the evidence of witnesses that the jury decided weren't credible to reach a guilty verdict. In the police statements that Fairbrass gathered, witnesses stated that I told them that Lorraine Martin had assaulted me. They believed me, asking Lorraine Martin what she had done to get herself into trouble.
By any stretch of the imagination, the investigation conducted by Fairbrass was not investigated appropriately. In his "review", McDermott did not take into account sufficient evidence. He did not even contact me to ask whether there was any other evidence that I held.
McDermott concluded:
That's right. McDermott decided to sign this letter, stating that he was the Officer in Charge of "Wellsford & Mangawhai", not stating the bleedingly obvious that he was also in charge of Warkworth Police.
I forwarded this fob-off letter to my lawyer, who then followed up his complaint against Lorraine Martin and Lois McPherson. He discovered that his complaint had been sitting on the desk of Constable Fairbrass and she hadn't done anything about it. Her response to my lawyer was "What do you want done with it?" My lawyer felt that he needed to explain to Fairbrass what a conflict of interest was and how Fairbrass handling a complaint against her case was not a good idea.
There are six vacancies at the Warkworth Police. Several have quit, some have moved to police jobs in Australia, and some have taken early retirement. There is clearly dissatisfaction with the culture at Warkworth Police. Several former Warkworth Police don't hold back when they describe the culture as crooked.
The Police Minister is local MP and former police dog handler, Mark Mitchell. If he wants to increase police numbers, he won't be attracting the right type to places like Rodney with the type of officers in charge of the police district.
These are just some examples of the many dodgy stunts that vigilantes and police tried in my book Unleashed: Sex, rackets & vigilantes in New Zealand's most corrupted community.
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