Police force pays out £2.9m compensation in three years
GREATER Manchester Police dished out at least £2.9m in compensation payments in the last three years.
And a third of the cash was paid to the force’s own officers and staff.
The whopping bill does not include the £3m GMP paid towards the legal costs of successful claimants. The total outlay of £5.9m is enough to pay for 84 new police constables for three years.
Force bosses stressed compensation claims were ‘inevitable’ in an organisation of nearly 11,000 staff handling more than 53,000 arrests and 1.7m calls last year. And they said the bill was a ‘very small’ proportion of GMP’s £542m annual budget.
But John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, warned against ‘paying out on frivolous claims too easily’.
GMP sometimes pays compensation or agrees settlements with members of the public if they have been injured or their property has been damaged during an investigation or in a pursuit.
The force can also compensate staff who makes claims after they have been hurt at work or suffered discrimination. In 2014, GMP paid out £53,000 to nurse Rebecca Leighton - who spent six weeks in custody suspected of poisoning patients before being released without charge after she had alleged the force had leaked her name to the press and made her Facebook page available to the public. She was paid £8,000 in an out-ofcourt settlement while her legal fees of £45,000 were also paid.
GMP’s huge compensation bill emerged when the M.E.N. used freedom of information legislation to ask the force how much money it had paid out in damages and legal costs over the last three years.
The figures show GMP paid out at least £2.9m in three years to April, 2016, with £1.1m going to current and former members of staff. The £2.9m includes about £1m paid in motor claims made against GMP, which has 1,550 vehicles covering about 16m miles each year.
Catherine Shackleton, GMP’s principal solicitor said: “Many GMP personnel work in very challenging and dangerous situations and some risk their lives every day in order to protect the people of Greater Manchester.
“The nature of policing makes accidents, incidents and legal challenges to the actions and decision-making of GMP personnel, inevitable.”
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance: “Of course a lot of these payments are going to be entirely justified, as the most serious accidents can change lives.
“But police bosses need to make sure that they are not failing to live up to the standards required of them by law or paying out on frivolous claims too easily. The police must do everything they can to ensure their mistakes and negligence don’t result in such large bills.”