Police firearms searches, 4 September and 27 November 2025

TO: Hon Mark Mitchell, Minister of Police
RE: Brigitta Maas — Police firearms searches, 4 September and 27 November 2025
STATUS: SINGLE QUESTION — RESPONSE REQUIRED ON ITS OWN MERITS

Minister,

This correspondence concerns a discrete matter of Police accountability.

It is not a complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and we are not asking your office to refer us back to the IPCA as a substitute for answering the accountability question raised below.

We recognise that s 16(2) of the Policing Act 2008 preserves Police operational independence in relation to the investigation and prosecution of individual offences.

We are not asking you to direct the prosecution, determine guilt or innocence, or interfere with the Court proceedings.

We are asking about accountability for the general conduct and administration of New Zealand Police, for which the Commissioner is expressly responsible to the Minister under s 16(1) of the Policing Act 2008.

QUESTION 1

Police records state that:

• on 4 September 2025, Police executed a firearms search warrant at Brigitta Maas’s property and seized a .22 rifle and ammunition; and
• on 27 November 2025, Police returned to the same property in connection with an Animal Control attendance, were unable to obtain either a conventional or verbal firearms warrant, invoked s 18 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, conducted a warrantless firearms search, and located another .22 rifle and ammunition.

If the purpose of the 4 September 2025 firearms search was to locate and remove firearms and ammunition from Brigitta Maas’s possession or control, what contemporaneous Police evidence establishes whether the firearm subsequently relied upon on 27 November 2025 was:

(a) present and observed during the 4 September search;
(b) present but not observed;
(c) observed but deliberately left behind;
(d) not present during the 4 September search; or
(e) incapable of being accounted for from the Police records of that first search?

That is the question.

Please answer it from the contemporaneous record, including as applicable:

• search photographs;
• body-worn camera footage;
• officers’ notebooks;
• search execution records;
• seizure inventory;
• property and exhibit records;
• firearm serial numbers and identifying markings;
• warrant return/report; and
• records identifying anything observed but not seized.

A later narrative or prosecution summary is not an answer to the question. We are asking what the contemporaneous record of the first search actually establishes.

If your office does not hold sufficient information to answer it, please state that expressly and identify:

1. what information your office does hold;
2. what information it does not hold;
3. which public authority holds the missing information; and
4. the statutory basis for any transfer or refusal.

Please do not answer Question 1 by addressing unrelated allegations concerning Brigitta Maas.

Please do not combine it with other matters.

We intend to ask the accountability questions one at a time, so that each question receives a clear answer and neither the question nor the response becomes obscured within a large complaint.

The continuing effort required to obtain elementary source-record accountability has already caused substantial cost. All reasonable costs, losses and remedies arising from any established unlawful conduct, deficient record-keeping, failure of disclosure or other actionable conduct are expressly reserved. We will maintain a record of the additional work and expense caused by failures to provide proper answers.

Once Question 1 has been answered, Question 2 will follow.

Tracy lynch

We Review the Crown
not a lawyer