Police could have stopped stalker who murdered Farzana Yaqubi, victim advocate says

A victim advocate says police could have stopped a stalker who went on to murder Auckland woman Farzana Yaqubi in 2022.

Yaqubi, who was 21, was threatened, stalked and then fatally stabbed to death in West Auckland on 19 December 2022.

An Independent Police Conduct Authority report has found a litany of police failures into police handling of complaints from Yaqubi that a man was stalking her, weeks before her murder.

Almost eight weeks after Yaqubi first reported the matter to police, she was murdered by Kanwarpal Singh. He was sentenced to 17 years' jail after pleading guilty.

She had initially complained to the police via the 105 online reporting system two months earlier identifying her stalker and providing messages the man was sending her including one where he threatened to throw acid on her face.

A report by the police watchdog, the IPCA says the law student later updated her complaint saying she feared for her life.

She made a formal statement at Henderson Police Station early December 2022.

Two weeks later Yaqubi was fatally stabbed after she got off the bus from work by the man she had complained to police about.

The IPCA says at that point her complaint had not progressed.

Victim advocate Ruth Money put the blame with the police saying "it sits solely with them".

"They could have stopped him multiple times, they didn't just have one complaint or one thread of evidence."

It was the job of the police to manage risk, she said.

"This poor lady kept reporting, showing all of these risky behaviours and they literally did nothing and moved pieces of paper around an office," she said.

"I absolutely believe Farzana would still be alive if police had done their job. There is no doubt in my mind."

Many police had a lack of awareness around stalking, she said.

"I participate in many disclosures to police by victims and survivors and some are met with the perception that the survivor is perhaps being hysterical or over-reacting which is absolutely not true."

The victim's fear of being stalked needs to be taken seriously by police and in light of this report further training is needed, she said.

"The 105 system is not fit for purpose, I encourage everybody to go in to stations and call 111, but even with Farzana, she went into the station - just fixing the 105 system is not going to help."

The culture and the training within the police about responding to stalking quickly needed to change because stalking escalates, she said.

Money said the 105 police reporting system does not seem to be adequately joined up from a case management perspective to ensure all the information "lands where it needs to".

She said she understood there was a police project underway looking at how to better manage online reporting.

"I would encourage police to expedite that, but certainly the 105 system needs an overhaul and to be linked in from an intelligence perspective throughout all of the police networks."

Police say only person responsible was Singh

Police superintendent Naila Hassan told Checkpoint the only person responsible for Farzana's death was the man who senselessly killed her.

"Having said that police do accept that we let Farzana and her family down when we missed opportunities to properly assess and investigate her concerns.

"We accept she came to us for help and we did not provide her the service that she and in fact all other New Zealanders deserve."

Hassan did not agree that Farzana Yaqubi would still be alive if police had handled her complaints appropriately repeating that the only person responsible for her death was the man who took her life.

"Our staff deal with hundreds of thousands of reports every year and while we wish we'd get it right every single time the reality is our people are human and in this case there were a series of errors of judgement and decision-making which led to inaction."

Police should have escalated Farzana's complaints and responded earlier, she said.

"This case does highlight that our systems aren't perfect and we need to focus on cases that demonstrate high harm or risk of violence to victims - and that's one of the things we're working at doing now."

Asked how police had failed to match Yaqubi's file up with that of another girl who was also being threatened by the same man, Hassan said it was partly due to police systems and the way files were assessed and partly due to human error.

Police had learnt from the IPCA and their own internal investigations and were looking at how to better respond to initial file assessments of complaints made to the police 105 call line, she said.

"We're reviewing all our initial assessments into reports so we can improve our overall response to victims," she said.

"We accept we let Miss Yaqubi and her family down, we should have acted sooner given the concerning behaviour that she was reporting to us."

There were a series of actions that resulted in police missing opportunities to intervene earlier, she said.

"Farzana's family are disappointed, bitterly disappointed in New Zealand police and they have every right to be."

Hassan said she had met with Farzana's family on Wednesday and personally apologised on behalf of New Zealand police.