A culture of “obstruction and delay” has scuppered investigations into police misconduct, MPs have warned, in a damning assessment of the way complaints against the police are handled.
A report by the home affairs select committee into the role of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that poor communications and “opaque processes” are having a detrimental impact on complainants and officers.
There is little public confidence that complaints are likely to succeed or result in proper sanctions if officers were found to have committed misconduct, the report concluded.
Diana Johnson, the chair of the committee, said the IOPC had a duty to deliver a complaints system that can restore public confidence after a succession of scandals had left trust in policing at a “perilous point”.
The IOPC took over complaints about police misconduct in England and Wales from the Independent Police Complaints Commission four years ago.
The report acknowledged that “substantial work” had been undertaken by the IOPC to rectify the failings of its predecessor, including a reduction in the time taken to complete investigations. The majority are completed within a year.
But MPs said it was “clear that much more needs to be done”. The committee’s inquiry heard how investigations were still being bogged down by different policing organisations and the IOPC blaming each other for ongoing delays.
“There needs to be a change of culture in police forces,” the report said. “It should not be necessary to compel officers to cooperate with investigations. This culture change must be from top to bottom to ensure that complaints are handled quickly and openly, delivering punishment for misconduct where necessary and clearing officers who have not committed an offence.”
The committee cited the “acute failures” of Operation Midland, Scotland Yard’s £2.5m inquiry into bogus allegations of a VIP paedophile inquiry, as how the police complaints system can go “so badly wrong”.
It said experiences suffered by those falsely accused and their relatives, such as Lord Brittan, the former home secretary who died before he was cleared, and his wife, Lady Brittan, were examples of why the system must deliver more timely inquiries.
Many other cases that did not benefit from attracting the same amount of publicity as Operation Midland had left complainants “feeling let down by a system failing to treat their complaints with the severity they merited”.
