A review into how police handled 40 child protection complaints has already triggered nine reports of suspected abuse or neglect. A series of documents obtained by RNZ reveal NZ Police did not know the name of a child victim whose case they had reopened, and that Oranga Tamariki was unaware of the major investigation until media began asking questions. National Crime Correspondent Sam Sherwood reports.

Eleven days before Oranga Tamariki was told of a major police investigation that involved the re-opening of 40 child protection complaints, police sought their help to identify a child linked to one of the cases under review.

Five days later, on 30 June, Oranga Tamariki (OT) replied saying it would grant access to the information request but, because of high demand, expected to provide the information by December.

Police responded saying they were "taking another look at an older file we believe holds risk for both police and OT".

"It has come to our attention because of a sensitive matter which I can't elaborate on at this time."

Internal police emails reveal the request was urgent because investigators needed information that would help identify the victim including the names and details of children placed in a person's care.

Police warned that waiting until December for the information "is going to create significant problems in addressing this risk".

The documents do not reveal what action, if any, OT took in response. It was not until 6 July that the agency was formally told about what Police had dubbed Operation Hark.

More than 100 pages of emails released to RNZ under the Official Information Act reveal how Oranga Tamariki first learned of the investigation, its scramble to assess dozens of affected cases, and senior staff's concern the agency could be "a bit over reliant on police's view" in the Child Protection Protocol process.

RNZ can also reveal that nine reports of concern have been created as a result of the NZ Police and Oranga Tamariki review of the identified cases.

The information request

Operation Hark began after concerns were raised in May about Detective Inspector Kevan Verry's handling of a historical sexual abuse case in Northland that had sat for a couple of years with no investigation. The initial case sparked a further review where another 13 cases were identified as requiring re-investigation

Police also carried out a rapid review of about 1000 files which were under Verry's oversight, with a further 40 cases identified for re-investigation. A team of specialist child protection and adult sexual assault investigators had been pulled together to work on the re-opened cases.

On 25 June, police sent the information request to Oranga Tamariki. Five days later they got a response from OT saying they would grant their request.

"As we are currently receiving more requests than anticipated, we are experiencing delays in processing these."

OT said it would supply the information by 7 December.

A police staffer, whose name is redacted from the OIA, sent an email that went to Detective Superintendent Uraia Vakaruru and another staff member asking if they had any way of fast-tracking the request.

One of the recipients asked what the file related to and said they would follow up with their contact at OT.

The staffer replied with information about the case (this information is redacted in the OIA).

"I have attached the IR that I submitted to OT - I did request a lot of information from them but the most important part was the names and details of children placed in her care as that would help us identify the victim."

One of the staff then emailed a staff member at OT saying they were taking another look at an older file "which we believe holds risk for both police and OT".

"It has come to our attention because of a sensitive matter which I can't elaborate on at this time.

"What I can say is that this IR relates to [redacted] so there is obvious risk and additional scrutiny attached to this."

Police asked for the request to be "escalated in the priority queue".

"The estimated response time of December 2026 by OT is going to create significant problems in addressing the risk."

The 'heads up'

On 6 July, OT chief social worker Nicolette Dickson sent an email to six staff including deputy chief executive Thomas Ronan and national commissioner North Alison Cronin advising them she had just been contacted by an assistant commissioner at NZ Police who was managing a "conduct issue" relating to one of their Child Protection Protocol (CPP) investigators.

"It appears that this information in quite significant detail has been leaked to media…" Dickson said.

An urgent meeting was being set up for OT and police staff that afternoon.

"One of the key issues for me is that the CPP process is a joint process and we will need to assure ourselves that we took appropriate steps for at least the 30 cases where gaps have been raised.

"We can be a bit over reliant on police's view in the CPP process so we will need to check we took appropriate steps from a child safety/wellbeing perspective."

Ronan later emailed Assistant Commissioner Tusha Penny asking to have a chat ahead of a meeting that was planned for later in the week as OT needed to do "some assessment work off the back of it".

Penny cc'd in Assistant Commissioner Corrie Parnell who was in charge of investigations and asked him to have someone forward details relating to each child protection case to OT.

Later that evening, a member of police's media team emailed OT's media team with a copy of a statement that would be sent to media about Operation Hark.

The statement included a line that said police were "working with Oranga Tamariki, IPCA and other agencies, as we progress this matter".

OT chief of staff Stephanie Short replied in an internal email querying the line about working with OT and asked whether that referred to the meeting that was scheduled to take place later that week or the initial call that Dickson received earlier that day.

"I'm also concerned from our minister's office perspective about what and when we knew about this issue when the police media response indicates we are working together."

On 7 July, an email was sent to a group of OT staff about the operation in Te Tai Tokerau relating to concerns about CPP work.

The staffer who sent the email - whose name is redacted - said they had told chief advisor Simon Harding that the group of staff would be happy to be part of any work OT undertakes to look at the cases that have been identified so far.

"I noted we will have been across lots of these and we have noted some cases where delays occurred or decisions to not take actions.

"I will let you know when I hear more, it is great to see police moving to address the concerns and responding publicly as a team we have seen how serious things have been up in TTT for some time."

That morning RNZ approached OT with questions about Operation Hark.

Ronan emailed police and said they were getting a few media requests and hoped to get the case details from police "as soon as possible".

A police staffer said they had two staff assigned to sorting the information and hoped to have it completed by the following day.

In a separate email exchange on 7 July, Harding emailed some staff about the list of cases that was coming on 8 July and said they would need a "structured spreadsheet or template" to use to inform the reviews.

He then listed a series of possible things to cover including did OT know, and what actions OT took.

"Possibly something about what the Police told us? (unsure about this one, I am getting at the potential issue we may find of Police telling us things are fine when there is insufficient information to take that at face value, or perhaps that was about prosecution and we used it as the reason to close without considering safety and wellbeing more broadly? This could instead be a consideration under other areas)."

Harding also suggested questions around safety.

"I.e. is there evidence to show we considered safety risks and (if needed) either addressed them or were satisfied they were addressed? Are you worried about child safety after taking a look??"

Nine reports of concern

Ronan told RNZ OT had completed a review of all cases identified by police as potentially impacted and which involved children, all of whom were under 18 at the time of reporting to police.

"We did not identify any cases requiring urgent intervention to keep children safe.

"However, we continue to work with police locally to consider each case, share information, and determine any further actions required."

Asked how many of the CPP cases required further action by OT, Ronan said the agency had worked with police on most of the cases identified thus far to determine what further response was appropriate. This included engaging with children and families.

"Nine reports of concern have been created as a result of the police and Oranga Tamariki review of the identified cases," he said.

A report of concern is a notification to Oranga Tamariki about suspected abuse, neglect, harm, or wellbeing concerns for a child or young person.

RNZ also approached police for comment on the OIA including why the victim's name was not known and why Oranga Tamariki was not informed of the investigation before 6 July.

In response, Detective Superintendent Keith Borrell said police had made specific enquiries with OT "during an early and sensitive stage of our investigations".

"During the initial assessment phase of Operation Hark we were working to understand the scale of the situation. We have shared more fulsome information once it was appropriate to do so with OT."

Borrell said police were "not in a position to comment on specific cases that are in the re-investigation phase".