The lawyer for three senior West Coast police officers taking a defamation case against their own district commander says there is still a good chance it can be resolved.
Inspector John Canning, Senior Sergeants Alison Elim and Philip Baker claim the Tasman District Commander Superintendent Karyn Malthus suggested they were incompetent, in comments made to the media.
The trio's lawyer, Grant Cameron, said a decision was made to sideline the men, for the wrong reasons - then the comments were made publicly.
Mr Cameron said the comments suggested that after long successful careers the officers' values did not align with the New Zealand Police, and they were currently on stress leave.
He said court papers would be filed, and he was quite sure that once the facts were on the table there would be an opportunity to sort things out.
