A man who had allegedly just been stabbed lost his yacht – also his home – after he called police and they arrested him and his supposed attacker, and decided to abandon the vessel at sea.
The 16m-long boat contained all his possessions, and more than a year later still has not been found.
The strange case ended up before the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), which on Thursday said police should have done more to mitigate the loss of the yacht, and increase the likelihood of its recovery.
The vessel was off the Far North coast on the afternoon of 2 December 2024, when its owner (Mr X) made a mayday call, claiming he had been stabbed by his crewmate (Mr Y).
Police located them about 10 nautical miles (18.5km) offshore shortly before 8.30pm and arrested the pair on existing warrants, putting both men in handcuffs. The IPCA said this was reasonable, with Mr Y being accused of stabbing Mr X, and Mr X “exhibiting unusual behaviour”, possibly due to “drugs or under the influence of some substance”.
They were taken ashore, the yacht left adrift.
Mr X complained to the IPCA that he had no opportunity to retrieve his belongings before being taken off the boat, and that neither he nor Mr Y were given lifejackets for the trip back to land.
The IPCA said in its ruling “more consideration should have been given to allowing Mr X to retrieve some of his property”, though the “circumstances were hazardous and reboarding the yacht may not have been without risk”, noting the vessel was in poor condition.
Police said uncuffing the men to put lifejackets on posed too much risk, which the IPCA disagreed with.
As for the stabbing, no investigation was undertaken while the men were in custody at Whangārei Police Station.
“We also found that police should have arranged mental health assessments for the men while they were in police custody and more should have been done to deal with Mr X’s complaint against Mr Y in relation to the alleged assault,” the IPCA said.
This was attributed to “the police response [involving] staff from different geographical regions of the Northland Police District, with staff from Whangārei assuming staff from the Far North would handle it, and vice versa.
“We note that police have held a debrief in relation to the response to this incident, including with Maritime NZ and Coastguard,” the IPCA report said.
“One of the issues identified was the absence of a clear policy on how police respond to incidents of this nature, unusual as they are. A recommendation from the debrief was that police develop a policy to support police responders in maritime operations. We fully support that recommendation.”
A search for Mr X’s yacht in the following days came up empty.
