Police Assistant Commissioner Sam Hoyle was the other senior officer who carried out a welfare check on Jevon McSkimming – a visit the Herald understands was because the disgraced former deputy commissioner was “in [his] darkest hour”.

The visit by Hoyle alongside former Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura was denounced by Commissioner Richard Chambers, who said he was “hugely disappointed” in the pair’s “poor decision making”.

Assistant Commissioner Sam Hoyle. Photo / Warren Buckland. 

As revealed by the Herald on Thursday, sources have confirmed the visit was requested by McSkimming’s wife, who was “very distraught” about her husband, who was in “serious strife”.

Chambers has referred to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report into the McSkimming scandal, which found evidence of serious misconduct by several senior police, as a “cover-up”.

A source has provided the Herald with additional information about the motivations for the visit by Kura and Hoyle.

A police source said former Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura and Sam Hoyle acted out of humanity when they visited Jevon McSkimming. Photo / Doug Laing 

“Sam was there to support Tania because he didn’t think she should attend alone. This was not a friendly social visit or a ‘cup of tea’ catch-up. It was a situation where someone was in their darkest hour, and Sam is exactly the kind of person you would want supporting anyone in that position,” the police source told the Herald.

Chambers has said that because he’d appointed another police leader to support McSkimming there was no justification for Kura and Hoyle to visit him.

However, the Herald has been told the leader delegated to support McSkimming, who isn’t a sworn officer, was ill-equipped to deal with people in distress.

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Kura asked Hoyle to accompany her on the welfare visit, which occurred after McSkimming was charged with possessing objectionable material but before he admitted the offending in court.

The Herald’s source emphasised that police still have a duty of care to support colleagues who find themselves in strife.

“Sam and Tania would have shown this same level of support to any colleague in a critical moment. That does not mean they condone what has happened. They acted out of care, professionalism, and humanity,” the source said.

Hoyle was not named and is not referred to at all in the IPCA report.

Former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming outside the Wellington District Court. Photo / RNZ's Mark Papalii 

The IPCA report into the handling of the McSkimming case said that when Kura confronted McSkimming about allegations of sexual misconduct posted anonymously on LinkedIn in 2023, McSkimming told her it was a situation that had been “going on for years” and the result of a disgruntled woman who was upset their affair had ended. 

Kura had only just begun her role as deputy commissioner alongside McSkimming – also newly appointed to the position – when the LinkedIn post was made. 

The IPCA’s report said Kura assumed any problematic matters regarding McSkimming would have been flushed out during the top-secret security vetting both she and McSkimming had to go through before getting their roles. 

The report said Kura also relied on the fact that other senior police were aware of the issues with the woman and her allegations “for years”. 

“Deputy Commissioner Kura nonetheless accepted, as others had done before her, the narrative put forward by Deputy Commissioner McSkimming – that this was a case of a mutually consensual affair, followed by the ‘rantings and allegations’ of a ‘woman scorned’,” the report said. 

The IPCA was critical of Kura for not probing deeper into the LinkedIn post, and for too readily relying on the assurances provided by McSkimming and others. 

However, its report also raised questions about the thoroughness of the Public Service Commission’s integrity checks that allowed McSkimming to be appointed to the role of deputy commissioner in the first place – a matter Attorney-General and Public Service Minister Judith Collins said was being taken “very seriously”. 

As far back as 2018, another public Facebook post accused McSkimming of preying on a young woman. 

The IPCA itself was tagged in that post but it failed to investigate. 

Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald’s video team in July 2024.