A GUARDIAN NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
THE fallout from the bungled probe into lurid and now-rubbished claims of historic child abuse by VIPs continues to inflict serious damage to the police. But nothing has been as devastating as the condemnation of former High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques, who accused top officers of allowing the course of justice to be perverted through their mishandling of the ridiculous allegations made by the fantasist and paedophile Carl Beech.
Sir Richard’s attack is so powerful not only because of his judicial status but also because in 2016 he conducted an inquiry into how the police tackled the case, highlighting no fewer than 43 blunders.
He now believes that the police’s potentially illegal behaviour and incompetence were so serious that ‘criminal investigations should swiftly follow’. As a former detective, I agree.
Last week, as Beech was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the Independent Office
for Police Conduct (IOPC) finally published its report into the saga, formally clearing three officers of any misconduct in the case.
It was a decision that both Richard and the wider public found incomprehensible.
Indeed, as Sir Richard has pointed out, because police were fully aware of the glaring inconsistencies in Beech’s testimony, they may have broken the law when seeking to obtain warrants to raid the homes of those accused of abuse. I share much of Sir Richard’s exasperation with the IOPC. As most police officers will tell you, the organisation is simply not fit for purpose, being top-heavy with senior managers and short of hard-nosed investigative experience.
A key part of the problem lies in how it was established.
The IOPC was launched after the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was thought to have lost its credibility after a string of controversies, not least its investigation of the shooting by police of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in 2011, which was accused of having inconsistencies and omissions and which was dismissed by Duggan’s family as a ‘whitewash’.
It was designed to be independent, with fewer conflicts of interest. Officers did not themselves carry out investigations into allegations of misconduct.
In the understandable desire for impartiality, the effectiveness of the IOPC has been lost. Misconduct cases are among the toughest of all to resolve because the small minority of corrupt officers are precisely the ones who know the tricks to mislead inquiries into their behaviour.
The IOPC moans about lack of resources to do its job properly, but this is unconvincing. In the last financial year, the organisation spent £72.6 million.
Too much of this sum is squandered on bureaucracy, not enough on hardened investigators. What we need now is radical reform. My solution would be to put stipendiary magistrates – who really understand the criminal justice system – in charge of investigations, bolstered by more investigators with real police experience.
Most of the police are decent. Like me, they loathe the way the force has been dragged through the mud by the deceitful incompetence of a few.
Now their watchdog must have the teeth to prove it.