This direct guidance on open hearings is welcome

Being a police officer is an unusual – though obviously extremely valuable – job, and one that sees people judged to a higher standard than normal civilians. Like lawyers and judges, those who uphold the law on the ground must keep to the highest levels.

And so while the man on the street may not see his misconduct hearing made public, that is not a reason for police officers’ disciplinaries to be held behind closed doors.

The News and other media outlets have long campaigned and argued for more transparency at these hearings. It is not out of a sense of spite, but founded on the belief that public systems enjoy most confidence when they are open; ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’, as someone said just over a century ago about the banks.

We need to know that officers of the law are upstanding, and will not be protected by the law should they transgress. We also need to know that should a police officer be found to have acted inappropriately towards, say a victim of domestic violence – as has happened recently in Portsmouth – that other women he may have dealt with professionally know about this in case they also have complaints about his behaviour.

One of the tenets of the courts is that ‘for justice to be done justice must be seen to be done’. As said earlier, we accept that a misconduct hearing does not equate directly to a criminal court, but the principles are similar.

It’s for this reason that we commend Hampshire’s police and crime commissioner Donna Jones for reiterating the need for open hearings in as many cases as possible. The test, of course, will be seen in the coming months and years, not straight away, as we see what happens at the hearings. But it is useful to have the basic principle laid out clearly so that those administering the hearings know where their starting point should be.