New Met police video

[Fedster + 1,307]

Retired officer's subsequent complaint was investigated with a 'clear lack of independence'.

The IPCC knew for months it had no evidence of wrongdoing by a former Fed rep, but did not tell him, it has been revealed.

A senior staff member told colleagues at the watchdog he was “dismayed” by its actions, which he believed had a detrimental effect on the wellbeing of the retired officer.

The organisation took “several months” to inform former Met rep John Jeffrey he had no case to answer over claims he had acted improperly during an inquest.

Mr Jeffrey supported two officers, Sgt Paul White and PC Mark Harratt, who were on duty in August 2008 when Sean Rigg died in custody at Brixton Police Station.

He was accused by the watchdog of passing information regarding evidence from one to the other during the inquest into Mr Rigg’s death.

Senior staff member Joseph Penrose criticised his colleagues for leaving it until March 2014 before informing Mr Jeffrey they had no evidence against him, having known this since summer 2013.

He wrote in an email the body gave a “misleading” impression to the former rep in an email when it claimed to have only just concluded he had done nothing wrong.

“ have to say I am dismayed by our handling of this case, which clearly has resulted in a decline in his wellbeing. The final report has been completed for several months and was QA’d [quality assured] by me around the end of 2013, I found very little wrong with it. Mary and Noranne had views on the conclusions which led to the subsequent delays whilst these were fine-tuned – repeatedly,” he said.

“Throughout that time Mr Jeffrey has been becoming increasingly agitated because of a lack of decision on his culpability, and this led to a series of complaints by him against staff, and the commissioner.

“Much of this could have been avoided, since it has been abundantly clear since the summer of 2013 that we had absolutely no evidence that Mr Jeffrey conspired with the other two officers at the inquest. We were in a position to confirm that when I QA’d the final report.”

He added he believed the delay was “unacceptable” and had wrongly left the former officer “in limbo”.

High Court Judge Lord Justice Irwin revealed the email in a judgement in which he found in favour of Mr Jeffrey, who had accused the watchdog of not properly investigating complaints he had made about his treatment.

He also described Ayaz Hassan and Paul Davies, from the watchdog’s internal investigation unit, of having an “over-close and inappropriate relationship” with those they were supposed to be investigating inside the IPCC.

“There was a clear lack of independence in the way [they] set about their investigation,” he said.

And he concluded the watchdog carried out a poor review of whether it had been appropriate to arrest and detain Mr Jeffrey over the matter.

He did not find it unreasonable for the watchdog to have categorised the complaints as “non-serious” when reviewing them, however.

IPCC Deputy Chairman Sarah Green said the organisation accepted the judgement.

She added: "We are writing to the former officer to apologise for the delay in informing him that no further action would be taken against him, and will reinvestigate elements of his complaint as directed by the court. 

"We are working through the implications for our internal guidance with regard to informing those under investigation of decisions affecting them at the earliest and most appropriate time.

"We regret that our internal investigation was not dealt with as rigorously as it should have been, and we are reviewing our internal investigation processes to ensure they are demonstrably independent, thorough and robust."

In setting out his judgement, Lord Justice Irwin also warned: “It may be that careful thought should in future be given [over] whether it is wise that the same Federation Representative should maintain contact with [the same] police officers who are forbidden to communicate with each other through the crucial phase of a case.”

No charges were ever brought against PC Harratt. In November Sgt White was found not guilty of perjury relating to his evidence at the 2012 inquest.

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[Indiana Jones + 1,103]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Cathedral Bobby + 1,174]

Who regulates the regulator, especially when they seem to be subject of more complaints and failures than any force they or individual they are investigating. I think the IPCC has had its day.

[Zulu 22 + 4,638]

1 hour ago, Cathedral Bobby said:

Who regulates the regulator, especially when they seem to be subject of more complaints and failures than any force they or individual they are investigating. I think the IPCC has had its day.

They could certainly remove the word Independent from their title. This is not unusual behaviour for them and they should be held to account.

[depot 169]

57 minutes ago, Zulu 22 said:

They could certainly remove the word Independent from their title. This is not unusual behaviour for them and they should be held to account.

Why? Who or what is it not independent of?

[Zulu 22 + 4,638]

Because the IPCC seem to be less and less independent as the time goes by. We certainly perceived a bias when we were dealing with them and their investigations. 

[depot 169]

Bias doesn't mean they're not independent though. However biased they are, they are independent of the police.

 

[Zulu 22 + 4,638]

Sorry but if you had dealings with them on behalf of officers too many of them have an agenda showing them in a different light. They are supposed to be Independent and as such should not be showing an open bias against officers. This was shown clearly by the case reported. The IPCC are becoming a law unto themselves which is wrong.

[Cathedral Bobby + 1,174]

When an organisation such as the IPCC becomes the news as regularly as it does it is time for a change. The public, government and the police need to have confidence it. The Government naturally have confidence in their inspectorates/regulators no matter how poorly they perform and lack public confidence - Ofsted for example, which has little support from schools, local authorities or parents but rules with an iron fist and achieves little.

With the police I am sure the service as a whole has little confidence in the IPCC, certainly many rank and file officers don't. The public is a little harder to judge. I do believe the IPCC is independent as an organisation but in its current structure I don't think it is fit for purpose. It is hard to have confidence in a regulator which is regularly in the media for its own failures.

[SimonT + 1,194]

I have faith in the ipcc, but only in that I believe they will take years to complete a poorly run and biased investigation.  

 

[Zulu 22 + 4,638]

3 hours ago, SimonT said:

I have faith in the ipcc, but only in that I believe they will take years to complete a poorly run and biased investigation.  

 

They do have the power though, to direct a Chief Constable to hold a discipline hearing, even though evidence may be lacking. When the evidence was "Beyond all reasonable doubt" there were no worries, but when they changed to a "Balance of Probabilities" then there is as grave danger of injustice. Justice must be seen to be done.

[Burnie 2,084]

15 hours ago, Zulu 22 said:

Because the IPCC seem to be less and less independent as the time goes by. We certainly perceived a bias when we were dealing with them and their investigations. 

Agreed.

 

I seem to recall another recent case where they investigated an officer and took the case a long way through the process before it was discovered that someone at the IPCC knew from a very early stage that the officer was innocent and had deliberately tried to hide the evidence they had that proved it.

 

Found it

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/08/three-officers-accuse-ipcc-of-criminal-conduct-over-taser-case

It was the Kennedy-Macfoy case where the subject (Edric Kennedy-Macfoy, an off duty firefighter) had been TASERed at an incident of disorder a week after the August 2011 riots. He claims he was attempting to offer his help to police and alledged excessive use of force and racial discrimination.

Apparently the IPCC had independant witnesses that corroborated the officers accounts from a very early stage, there was also (according to a BBC News article) an IPCC investigators notebook which states that the evidence from the officers and witnesses led to multiple IPCC investigators concluding that the force was reasonable in the circumstances faced by Police.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37683977

 

However, the IPCC are alledged to have failed to obtain formal statements from those witnesses and are alledged to have suppressed that investigators notebook and continued for the next 2 years to push the case through to disciplinary in late 2013. It was only at the disciplinary hearing that the IPCC lawyer they sent spotted the 'errors' and decided to suddenly offer no evidence against the officers.

However the IPCC have tried to dress it up by saying that 'oh we forgot to follow up some evidence and if we now spent the time getting it then it would be an unreasonable delay to the case so lets just drop it all m'kay? But we're not going to admit that the officers were right and that they werent racist. No. Because we've had to drop the case, they havent been proven innocent'.....

 

 

The officers involved have since submitted a criminal misconduct complaint against the IPCC for their actions during the investigation - I understand the NI Police Ombudsman is conducting that investigation

 

And then the IPCC wonders why the ex-head of the NBPA is making statements that say that he believes the IPCC is racist in so far as it is evident that they seem more willing to believe the allegations of one black member of the public than they are to believe the evidence of multiple white police officers with independent white witnesses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36936264

 

All the information for the above can be found by doing a google news search of the terms: IPCC Kennedy-Macfoy

Edited February 4, 2017 by Burnie

[Klaus 585]

So who is investigating this one? I presume the IPCCIPCC will be suspending the IPCC and taking the necessary action, loss of pension, reprimands, etc for the independent person responsible?

0.o


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[Cathedral Bobby + 1,174]

The IPCC has become like Ofsted is. It believes its own rhetoric and it is infallibly (holier than though).

We should change the attestation oath to the following:

" We the willing, lead by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now expert at doing anything with nothing"

[Hades + 1,693]

On 04/02/2017 at 19:35, Klaus said:

So who is investigating this one? I presume the IPCCIPCC will be suspending the IPCC and taking the necessary action, loss of pension, reprimands, etc for the independent person responsible?

0.o


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There was some suggestion that the MPS were investigating possible criminal offences in relation to this matter, however I've not heard any updates on it...