The sorry saga that followed the crash on Earnscleugh Rd on July 14, 2005, leaves a deep stain on the reputation of Otago police.
Its aftermath left one police officer in jail for perjury and another convicted for perverting the course of justice.
Several other police officers, most of them senior, have also been strongly criticised in the Independent Police Conduct Authority findings into the police handing of the case which were released last Friday.
The events would have been bad enough if they could have been blamed on one officer lying. But, as the authority found, ''multiple failings'' compounded matters.
A 17-year-old was falsely convicted of careless driving and causing injury, protestations of complaint were ignored and the concerns of a junior officer swept aside.
Now, nearly nine years later, it seems no-one other than two constables who appeared before the courts can or will receive any disciplinary action.
The community desperately wants to trust the police. Society's veneer of civilisation is thin and human wrong-doing is never far away.
Staffing the ramparts of law and order are the police, individuals who are part of the community who also act for and with the community.
If they cannot be trusted, who can?
New Zealand has been fortunate, generally, in the calibre of its police and in the relative lack of corruption and graft compared with most of the world, including Australia.
Theirs is, on the whole, a proud record. But police officers as individuals (and the organisation by its nature) are vulnerable, even in our backyard.
It takes very little for some - even if small in number - to go too far in protecting their own or in taking the law into their own hands.
Like members of virtually any industry, they can easily develop an us-against-the-world defensive mentality, an insular clannishness, rather than being open, flexible and responsive.
As the authority found, the hero of the incident was Steve Potter, of Alexandra. He and his wife, Denise, took up the case of Shane Cribb and refused to be brushed off.
They complained and campaigned, despite confronting a wall of police obstinacy. Society owes a debt to rare people like this with the courage, determination and skills to persist in the cause of justice.
Without the Potters, Mr Cribb's false conviction would have remained, and the perjury and the ''multiple failings'' of the police would have remained hidden.
Naturally, the public must wonder how many similar wrongs take place undetected.
Who would know?
While the authority failed to find a conspiracy among police officers overseeing the crash investigation, the list of mistakes it details is long.
Now, it seems the individuals concerned cannot be disciplined because a former 12 months' limit on instituting disciplinary proceeding has long passed.
This case illustrates the ridiculousness of that rule. Mr Potter raised questions from the start, including complaints to the authority.
It was the police - and the authority - responsible for all the delays so there was no way, it would seem, anyone could ever be disciplined no matter their culpability.
As University of Otago dean of law Prof Mark Henaghan said, the delays have been unfair to all involved, including the criticised senior officers.
As he said, there had also been no indication police addressed the ''shortcomings'' related to the supervising of the case by Michael Cook, then a senior sergeant and acting Otago rural area commander.
Insp Cook has since been promoted and seconded to the Southern district's policing excellency project. Given the specific criticisms of him and the police investigation into the crash in the authority's report, the promotion seems surprising to many and the public deserves an explanation why.
The watchwords of the authority are independence, trustworthiness, accountability, vigilance and integrity.
These attitudes must also underpin the actions of the police themselves, whatever their human frailties and the temptations they face.
As Mr Potter said: ''One of the biggest problems is you couldn't rely on the very people you rely on to do things properly - the police.''
We do, quite rightly, expect the highest standards from our police.
They let both themselves and us down badly in the handling of Shane Cribb's prosecution.
