Shake-up, but is justice done in police misconduct cases?
SEVERAL Leicestershire Police officers have been found guilty of misconduct in the past three years - but critics claim the new complaints system is “broken” and “powerless”.
Of the 800-plus investigations carried out by the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC) since it was formed in 2018, three have involved the Leicestershire force, with eight officers and two staff found to have a case to answer for misconduct.
Two of the cases involved death and serious injury and the other was a complaint of discrimination.
A force panel overseeing the tribunals cleared one member of staff, while another had left the force before a tribunal was held.
Charges of misconduct were proven against eight officers. All were part of a Leicestershire Police WhatsApp group which saw more than 3,000 messages exchanged between 17 officers.
The tribunal found that a large number of conversations were “offensive and derogatory” and included terms that were “discriminatory and sexual in nature”.
Four officers were found to have committed gross misconduct and were dismissed without notice. The other four were proven to have committed the lesser charge of misconduct and were given final written warnings.
The IOPC replaced the Police Complaints Commission in a bid to speed up decision-making and create more accountability.
It has the power to ensure forces investigate cases of possible misconduct. However, force disciplinary panels have the final say on sanctions.
Over the past three years, 418 misconduct tribunals have been held after an by the IOPC.
According to figures compiled by the BBC, panels subsequently found officers or staff to have committed misconduct or gross misconduct in two-thirds of cases (64 per cent, or 266 cases).
For cases of misconduct, panels handed out 18 final written warnings, 57 written warnings, took management action in 50 cases and took no further action in 12 cases.
For gross misconduct, disciplinary panels dismissed 55 police officers without notice, gave 36 final written warnings and handed out four written warnings.
IOPC guidance introduced in 2020 states that a misconduct case should be considered a disciplinary matter that would “warrant at least a written warning”.
Among the fiercest critics of the system is documentary maker Ken Fero, who campaigns on behalf of United Families and Friends Coalition, an action group representing families whose loved ones have died in police custody.
He said: “We are still in a situation where the State controls the investigation, the outcomes and the legal process.
“There’s no actual independence or external monitoring of this other than from the families themselves.
“The only meaningful measure of whether the IOPC has been effective is whether their work has in any way been successfully used to prosecute a police officer for use of violence - and the answer is no.
“The only three prosecutions that we’ve had as a result of a death of a member of the public have been in the cases of Sarah Everard, Dalian Atkinson and Henry Foley, the latter of which was a case from the 1980s.
“The data initial investigation supports what the families have been saying for a long time, which is that the system is broken.”
Pc Benjamin Monk was jailed for eight years last year, for the unlawful killing of former Aston Villa striker Dalian Atkinson outside his father’s home in Telford. Monk discharged his Taser three times and kicked Mr Atkinson twice in the head.
Retired bus driver Henry Foley was beaten by Merseyside police officer Alwyn Sawyer while in custody and died from his injuries in 1985. Sawyer was jailed for seven years for manslaughter in 2021.
Kathie Cashell, IOPC director of strategy and impact, said that out of 107 cases that went to disciplinary proceedings last year after the IOPC investigated, the case was proven in almost 80 per cent of them.
She added: “While we respect the remit of disciplinary panels, we do not necessarily always agree with their conclusions.
“The IOPC and disciplinary panels will not always reach the same conclusion on analysis of what is sometimes a complex set of evidence and where different legal thresholds apply.”
However, the Police Federation said the most serious punishments were rarely imposed because the IOPC too often pursued “vexatious allegations” against its members which the watchdog disputes.
Ché Donald, national vice chair for the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “A ‘no further action’ outcome for proven misconduct may demonstrate the case was not serious enough to require a written warning.
“Although labelled as misconduct, it could be a low-level mistake, for example, forgetting to fill out a form due to the demands of the job.”