Complaints against officers

[Techie1 + 2,024]

Legal protection is not sufficient to carry out any manoeuvre a member of the public cannot and government won't listen, staff association says.

The Police Federation of England and Wales has sent a letter to forces warning drivers over the lack of protection the law gives them.

The staff association is warning they have barely any legal rights and should not carry out any manoeuvre that a non-police driver would not.

Under existing law, emergency service workers are only permitted to ignore traffic signs and speed limits and the Fed has long said these are insufficient safeguards.

The traffic sign is void if there is any element of risk to the public, and the speed limit safeguard does not stop charges of careless driving being brought.

After years of highlighting the issue to politicians to no avail, the Fed has now written to forces to point out:

"Officers have a sworn duty and must uphold that duty.

"Officers should drive in a way which is lawful and does not contravene the laws of dangerous or careless driving.

"Officers are advised not to undertake any manoeuvre which may well fall outside the standard of the careful and competent non-police driver."

It adds: “A typical response or pursuit drive is likely to involve the officer contravening traffic signs and or speed limits. A course of driving involving contravention of traffic signs and speed limits is very likely to fall within the definition of careless or dangerous driving.

“Officers are required by law to drive to the standard of the careful and competent driver. Not the careful and competent police driver, the careful and competent (non-police) driver. This is the standard police drivers will be held to.

“There are no legal exemptions from the offences of careless or dangerous driving. Any such drives are therefore likely to be unlawful, placing the driver at risk of prosecution and proceedings for gross misconduct.”

It points out its advice follows the IPCC recently directing a force to bring proceedings against an officer for gross misconduct for careless driving.

The Fed would not clarify to Police Oracle which case or force this referred to, but in April Greater Manchester Police constable Simon Folwell was the subject of a similar case.

PC Folwell was pursuing 24-year-old Luke Campbell, who died after crashing into another car.

GMP disagreed with the watchdog’s findings but it was nevertheless directed to open proceedings against the officer.

In January the Fed revealed more than 100 officers had been pursued over on duty driving matters in the preceding 18 months.

In a statement, Tim Rogers, the Police Federation of England and Wales’ (PFEW) lead on roads policing, said: “We are keen to remind our drivers that they should drive within the law.

“Legal advice has recently highlighted that police response and pursuit drives are, in most circumstances, highly likely to fall within the definitions of careless and or dangerous driving.

“The Federation has raised this matter with numerous MPs but to date the difficulties remain with our proposed draft for legislative change not yet having been progressed to a point where officers are appropriately protected.”

View on Police Oracle

[PCW + 135]

Many expletives come to mind, many many expletives. I'm sure every officer is feeling well and truly supported 

[Sherlock 117]

I know of some officers who rarely use their response permit to go through lights saying it's not worth it.

[Hyphen + 693]

It's a sad state of affairs really, I can totally understand the concern of some officers and wondering whether it would be worth it.

Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to look at the laws in place and come up with a sensible solution?

I don't think anyone is asking for carte Blanche to drive like a maniac but there must be a way of taking training in to account.

I wonder if there are similar issues in other countries?  

[JulietAlpha1 + 515]

6 minutes ago, Hyphen said:

It's a sad state of affairs really, I can totally understand the concern of some officers and wondering whether it would be worth it.

Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to look at the laws in place and come up with a sensible solution?

I don't think anyone is asking for carte Blanche to drive like a maniac but there must be a way of taking training in to account.

I wonder if there are similar issues in other countries?  

The Fed and CoP have drafted legislation I believe. All it requires is for it to get through Parliament.

[Hyphen + 693]

Thanks @JulietAlpha1I had missed that part at the bottom of the article! So it looks like the issue is there is isn't much appetite from the MPs regarding any changes. Seems to be dragging on a bit.

[SD + 687]

Have said it else where but I stopped driving response (other than for back up calls) a while ago. Nothing they can do about it as I'm only refusing to break the law and they can't make me do it. This is not a new think though it's just that cops always have a "won't happen to me" attitude about these things then are surprised and upset when it does. 

[Growley + 2,436]

4 hours ago, Hyphen said:

Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to look at the laws in place and come up with a sensible solution?

It would surely be as simple as changing the standard Police drivers are held against. If we simply held officers to the standard of a competent Police driver of their level of training then it wouldn't be an issue.

[Jedi Knight 59]

19 hours ago, PCW said:

Many expletives come to mind, many many expletives. I'm sure every officer is feeling well and truly supported 

How can the force support you though if your driving effectively breaks the law? (as it currently stands)

 

[BlueBob + 691]

13 hours ago, Growley said:

It would surely be as simple as changing the standard Police drivers are held against. If we simply held officers to the standard of a competent Police driver of their level of training then it wouldn't be an issue.

Thats a fine concept but we now look at the different ways differing forces conduct their training, it doesn't cover all scenario.  Similarly, if there was a will to change legislation, and the OP & Hades suggests its only the FED /CoP who have a draft rather than a white paper, then perhaps the training will be consolidated.  A difficulty with setting a standard against a training package could be that small changes in training could still leave officers exposed if they had not had the most uptown date refreshers etc.  

Will it come soon?  well, we already know S19 Road Safety Act 2006 has yet to be adopted and that only applied to speed limits, and well, the main elements only came in 11 years ago!!!  No idea if allowing police and other emer service drivers an exemption from S1,2 &3 RTA offences was discussed as part of the RSA by Fed and then MPs, but logically, that was the time to do so.  Perhaps its absence from the RSA suggests thats the view of the legislators.  
Something that was discussed before about the RSA was it only dealt with speed and not the other exemptions which means a driver doesn't need to be trained to pass through red ATS etc - amazing when you think about it in the context of road safety.
Its always been a case of officers knowing that if things go wrong then they may well be held accountable at a court.  The pressure upon officers to make swift attendance is huge, perhaps when things go wrong more probing could / should be done to verify their actions have not been pressured by others and if it has, then they can also be held accountable

[Zulu 22 + 4,571]

On another forum a particular case was mentioned.

2 hours ago, archermav said:

PC Vaughan Lowe was well and truly hung out to dry by the IPCC for 5 years, despite being found not guilty in January 2015 for causing death by careless. This poor bloke has been so poorly treated by the IPCC they should hang their collective heads in shame. I do know the details on this one Zulu.

The report of the accident and court hearing is in this link. I can find nothing further about the IPCC's subsequent action.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/west-midlands-police-driver-cleared-8492674

It was noticeable that after the unanimous not guilty verdict the Judge said, quote from the article.

"Following the not guilty verdict, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told PC Lowe: “This jury has acquitted you. "That is the end of this matter. You may now go and be with your family. I will not say any more.

Some bright spark at the IPCC has obviously had perverted other idea's. With the IPCC we are always put in double jeopardy.

It would be interesting if anyone does know the outcome of the IPCC's persecution.

The Judge appeared to make his opinion known by his comments on acquittal. The verdict of the Jury was also unanimous.  Even so the IPCC appeared not to want to accept the verdict of 12 people.

[BlueBob + 691]

especially in scenario where death is involved, it would be very very difficult to legislate so as to provide an exemption from the RTA, without it being tested in a court.  The greater tragedy in some of the police driver cases is the significant delay in reaching a court , but we can never be sure where the delay has been caused - by the police  in preparing  prosecution or by  'police' officer in preparing their defence.

[Zulu 22 + 4,571]

3 hours ago, BlueBob said:

especially in scenario where death is involved, it would be very very difficult to legislate so as to provide an exemption from the RTA, without it being tested in a court.  The greater tragedy in some of the police driver cases is the significant delay in reaching a court , but we can never be sure where the delay has been caused - by the police  in preparing  prosecution or by  'police' officer in preparing their defence.

Or even the CPS.  However it is fact that Police cases seem to take an extraordinary length of time to get before Court.

[Jedi Knight 59]

As far as I can see the only reason a lot of police drivers are not prosecuted for driving offences is because its not in the public interest. Which to be honest is a pretty thin defence and where they are prosecuted it's because the jury / public accept we have to drive like that on occasion. Personally I don't fancy having to put my future in their hands... 

[MajorDisaster + 579]

I don't want to get into the minutiae of traffic law - I simply don't know it well enough.  All I will say is that the message we have had from our operational  command and our Fed reps is 'drive as you have been taught'.  That's really all I have to say on the matter.