Is the ACC above the law?

Police decline to investigate allegations of fraud, contravention of statute and criminal harassment committed by ACC staff.

On the 11th of April 2008 a complaint was laid with the Christchurch police on behalf of a disentitled claimant.

The claimant's weekly compensation had been unlawfully suspended on three separate occasions. Each occasion his weekly compensation was suspended drove him further into debt and caused serious financial and mental harm. The stated grounds for the suspensions were spurious and do not stand up to scrutiny, which in the opinion of Acclaim Canterbury demonstrated a reckless disregard for the consequences, tantamount to fraud and criminal harassment.

It is understood that the police stated that it was a civil matter and not one for the police to investigate and that in their opinion there are guidelines under the ACC system for lodging such a complaint.

Surely it is the moral duty of every citizen to report a crime and once reported, the police then have a legal duty to investigate. Not so, it appears, when the criminal is ACC and the perpetrators are ACC employees.

Clearly, the police either have no knowledge of the ACC legislation or have been very poorly advised, or both, or perhaps they are more concerned about where the funding is coming from for the next booze bus and patrol cars.

Questions to be put to the ministers of police and ACC: Do the police have a legal duty to investigate reported crimes? Is the Accident Compensation Corporation going to continue to be allowed to operate outside the law of the land? Is its staff permitted to act in bad faith with impunity?

And the claimant goes further into debt.

M. R. Jorgensen
President
Acclaim Canterbury Inc

ENDS

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