Former police commissioner Andrew Coster has quit his new role at government department the Social Investment Agency in the wake of the Jevon McSkimming scandal, 1News understands.
His decision to leave his chief executive role after just 12 months of a five-year term was expected to be confirmed by Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche this afternoon.
He leaves behind an estimated salary of around half a million dollars a year.
Coster has been under fire since the release of a damning IPCA report, which found "serious misconduct" among the upper echelons of police in the handling of former deputy police commissioner McSkimming.
Coster and other senior police executives dismissed repeated complaints from a young woman about a sexual relationship with McSkimming, spanning multiple years.
Her complaints included allegations of sexual interaction without consent, threats to use an intimate visual recording, and misuse of a police credit card and police property to further a sexual relationship.
Neither Coster nor McSkimming disclosed the allegations to the Public Service Commission when McSkimming was going through the appointment process for his deputy commissioner role in early 2023.
The watchdog said a 2024 investigation into the woman's claims was not properly conducted. It said it was was only notified of the allegations in October 2024.
Former top cop Andrew Coster quits govt role amid McSkimming fallout - Watch on TVNZ+
Coster had contacted the IPCA, raising concerns that its inquiries could "increase Jevon's victimisation" and harm his chances during the appointment process for the top commissioner job.
Coster then convened a meeting with other key players to "ensure natural justice" for McSkimming and to bring the investigation to a "rapid and premature conclusion".
'Very invested'
One staffer told the IPCA: "It was quite clear that [Coster] was very invested in Jevon becoming the next Commissioner."
The IPCA report said the senior officers involved held "an entrenched view" that McSkimming was a victim rather than an offender and were "unduly preoccupied" with protecting his future career prospects.
McSkimming would later be arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.
Coster was appointed as police commissioner in early March 2020 and was the youngest in the role in the force's history, aged 44.
Then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern commended Coster's "positivity, inclusion and integrity".
The man who replaced Coster as Police Commissioner, Richard Chambers, said the events and findings laid out in the IPCA report "made for appalling reading and showed a total lack of leadership and integrity at the highest levels of police".
He added: "The usual integrity checks and balances were bypassed, there was interference from the highest levels, and the ambitions of a senior police officer were put above the interests of a vulnerable woman."
The Social Investment Agency Coster headed is a new government department overseen by Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis
After reading the critical IPCA report, Willis said she was “shocked and appalled” by the findings. She requested Coster's employer, the Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche, to look into the former police commissioner's appointment to the Social Investment Agency.
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