§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas)The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Cordle) has sought permission to address the House sitting down, in view of a disability which we hope is temporary, and of course he may do so.
§ 11.45 p.m.
§ Mr. John Cordle (Bournemouth, East)It is kind of you to mention my request, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had slipped a disc, but my back is now much better so I shall address the House in the usual way.
I wish to raise the matter of a constituent who has suffered a great deal as a result of delay by the police in connection with a theft. My constituent, Mr. Hyman Weiner, came to see me on three occasions, following which I visited the Home Office twice, though so far without having reasonable justice shown to him in respect of the case.
The matter arises from a complaint made by Mr. Weiner against a Metropolitan Police officer. I wish to raise two issues—first the facts relating to the 204 original complaint, and secondly the way in which the complaint was dealt with.
On Thursday, 25th February 1971 a Ford Transit van loaded with Internet radio sets valued at £2,750 was stolen at Goswell Road, London, EC1. The van belonged to Mr. Weiner, who is in business in the Bournemouth area as a wholesaler of radio sets.
On the morning of Friday 5th March 1971 Mr. Weiner was told by a trade friend that he had been offered Internet radios by certain individuals at prices substantially below the market place. Mr. Weiner was naturally pleased and excited at the news, and immediately telephoned the King's Cross Police Station, where the officers dealing with the theft were stationed, to inform them. The officer to whom he spoke said that action would be initiated at once through the local police, who would contact him. When nothing happened before lunchtime Mr. Weiner contacted the local police, who called to see him and said that they would contact King's Cross Police Station and deal with the matter forthwith.
At about 7.30 that evening Mr. Weiner was telephoned at home by the local police, who had interviewed the persons concerned in offering the radios for sale and who had been told that the radios had been purchased by them from the Harrow Watch Company in London. Mr. Weiner is sure that he immediately telephoned King's Cross Police Station and spoke to Mr. D. C. Knight, the officer in charge of the theft investigation, to inform him of the position. A discussion took place on the telephone, as a result of which Mr. Knight said that he would visit the company on Sunday morning.
Mr. Weiner's complaint was that the officer did not visit the company until Wednesday 10th March, by which time the stolen goods had been removed. It later transpired that the individuals who had tried to sell the radios at below the market rate in Bournemouth, and who had been interviewed by the local police the previous Friday, 5th March, had visited the Harrow Watch Company again on Monday 8th March, when they had been offered more of the same consignment of radios, which they had refused because they said that they knew they were stolen and that the police were 205 on to the company. In the circumstances it is hardly surprising that by Wednesday 10th March 1971 no stolen goods were found on the premises.
Mr. Weiner had telephoned the King's Cross Police Station twice on Monday 8th March. He telephoned twice on Tuesday 9th March and again on Wednesday 10th March in the morning in an endeavour to ascertain the result of the search which he had assumed had taken place on the Sunday. On each occasion he was told that Detective Constable Knight was either out or not available. It was only when he telephoned for the second time on Wednesday afternoon at about four o'clock in the afternoon that he was told that the premises had been searched only that morning. When he inquired of the officer to whom he was speaking the reason for the delay, he was told that it took three to four days to get a search warrant and that the matter had been dealt with as quickly as possible.
Being extremely annoyed and dissatisfied with what he had learned, Mr. Weiner immediately telephoned Scotland Yard and made a complaint. The complaint was investigated by Detective Chief Inspector Brown of Leman Street Police Station. He first met Mr. Weiner on 24th March 1971 and took a statement from him. He then interviewed the various other persons involved. On 19th April 1971 Detective Chief Inspector Brown asked Mr. Weiner to see him when he was in London to clarify some points in his statement.
The question which I now wish to pursue arises out of the behaviour of the chief inspector at the second meeting with Mr. Weiner which took place on Monday 26th April 1971. At that meeting Mr. Brown said that Mr. Knight had denied receiving a telephone call from Mr. Weiner on Friday 5th March. Mr. Weiner said that he was sure he was not mistaken. He says that the attitude of the chief inspector then changed dramatically. I can do no better than to read Mr. Weiner's statement to me which he signed:
When Detective Chief Inspector Brown found that I was resistant to the suggestion that I might have been mistaken or that I might have telephoned Knight on the Saturday morning he suddenly changed his whole demeanour. He shouted at me ' You will be torn to shreds in the witness box….' I was 206 completely nonplussed. His attitude had instantaneously changed from friendliness to antagonism. He was like the television character Inspector Barlow in the series 'Softly, Softly'. I felt that I was being interrogated and that I was the guilty party. I was put into a state of emotional turmoil. I felt mentally overpowered. It was not that I was in fear of Brown but that I was put into a state of complete mental blockage. I was confused and completely off balance. After much discussion Detective Sergeant Spears wrote out the statement from information that I gave him. I signed it. It was an accurate record of what I said although what I said was not an accurate record of what took place because there has never been in my mind the slightest doubt about my discussion with Knight on the Friday evening.As a result of that statement, no further action was taken regarding the complaint. But Mr. Weiner consulted solicitors who corresponded with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. In the result, one cannot but be left with the feeling that this is a case in which something went wrong with the police investigation of an offence. It might have been incompetence or it might have been corruption. The matter does not appear to have been adequately and fairly investigated.I ask that an independent inquiry be established by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to investigate the facts and the circumstances of this matter. Mr. Weiner has suffered a great deal. He has been constantly worried about the whole issue and he has had no compensation for his loss.
§ 11.55 p.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill)I regret the temporary disability of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Cordle) and wish him a speedy recovery. I appreciate that he sent me notice of the points he wished to raise in this debate. However, I am surprised that he has decided to raise this matter in the House after the very full investigations which have been made into his constituent's complaints and the great care which has been taken by my predecessors at the Home Office to explain the situation.
The basic facts of Mr. Weiner's case which have been described by the hon. Gentleman are not in dispute. There are two main questions at issue. The first is why, if Mr. Weiner gave the name of the Harrow Watch Company to Detective Constable Knight on Friday 5th March, 207 it was not until Wednesday 10th March, that the premises were searched. The second is whether Mr. Weiner's complaint about this initial delay was properly investigated.
On the first question, the hon. Gentleman said that Mr. Weiner was telephoned at home at about 7.30 p.m. on 5th March by the local police at Boscombe and was given the name of the Harrow Watch Company, London, E.1. Mr. Weiner is sure that he immediately telephoned King's Cross Police Station and passed this information on to Detective Constable Knight.
Both the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and the Chief Constable of the Dorset and Bournemouth Constabulary were asked for reports on Mr. Weiner's complaint about the subsequent delay. The Commissioner's report said that Detective Constable Knight had been off duty from 8.30 p.m. on Friday 5th March, until 2 p.m. on Saturday 6th March and could not therefore have spoken to Mr. Weiner between those times. No other police officer at King's Cross Police Station had any record or recollection of Mr. Weiner passing on the relevant address.
According to Detective Constable Knight, the first time he heard the name of the Harrow Watch Company was in the evening of Tuesday 9th March, when the detective constable dealing with the case at Boscombe told him by telephone that the stolen radios were believed to have come from the Harrow Watch Company, Harrow Place. Detective Constable Knight received this telephone call after 9.30 p.m. when it was too late to take any action that day. The next morning, after some preliminary inquiries to establish the exact address of the premises—their number had not been given—Detective Constable Knight applied for a search warrant and a search was carried out in the early afternoon. None of Mr. Weiner's radios was found.
I mentioned two reports on this matter. The second report, from the Chief Constable of Dorset and Bournemouth, said that the detective constable dealing with the case in Boscombe had not obtained the name of the Harrow Watch Company until 9 p.m. on Friday 5th March during an interview that was not concluded until about 11 p.m. The interviewing officer 208 had no record or recollection of telephoning the information received to Mr. Weiner that night.
The Boscombe police then tried to establish the address of the Harrow Watch Company by making inquiries at Bishops-gate Police Station, in whose area it was believed to be, and of directory inquiries. When these inquiries proved unsuccessful, it was thought probable that the informants had been lying. They were therefore interviewed again on 9th March, when they gave another name under which the firm might be trading and also its telephone number. It was at this point that the Boscombe police telephoned Detective Constable Knight who, as I have already said, then made immediate inquiries and had the premises searched.
I do not wish to give the impression that Mr. Weiner's account of his telephone conversations with the police was deliberately inaccurate. When a number of conversations are held with different people on several consecutive days, it is very easy to mistake exactly what was said by whom to whom. The London police could equally have been wrong in their recollection if it had not been that telephone conversations at police stations are carefully recorded and that the records and recollections of police officers in two different stations in two separate forces all provide evidence to suggest that Mr. Weiner was mistaken.
I now turn to the second point at issue, which is whether Detective Chief Inspector Brown properly conducted his investigation of Mr. Weiner's complaint. Detective Chief Inspector Brown first interviewed Mr. Weiner about his complaint on 24th March 1971, when Mr. Weiner stated categorically that he had spoken to Detective Constable Knight between 7.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday 5th March. When the subsequent inquiries suggested that this was not possible, Detective Chief Inspector Brown saw Mr. Weiner again on 26th April and explained that the recorded actions of neither Detective Constable Knight nor the Boscombe police officer supported his story.
Mr. Weiner then made a second statement saying that the telephone conversation with Detective Constable Knight may have taken place on either Friday night or Saturday morning. Mr. Weiner knew 209 from what Detective Chief Inspector Brown had said that Detective Constable Knight had gone off duty at 8.30 p.m. on the Friday evening but did not know that he had remained off duty until 2 p.m. the next day. It is this second statement that the hon. Gentleman, on Mr. Weiner's behalf, suggests was obtained by such an antagonistic approach that Mr. Weiner hardly knew what he was doing.
I think that it is perhaps relevant to mention here that when the solicitors who were consulted by Mr. Weiner after this second interview wrote to the Commissioner of Police on 11th June 1971 they gave no indication at all that undue pressure had been exerted on Mr. Weiner, nor did they make any complaint about the behaviour of Detective Chief Inspector Brown, although specific reference was made to the second interview. It was not until January 1972, when Mr. Weiner engaged a second firm of solicitors, that he made the allegation against Detective Chief Inspector Brown that has been quoted by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East.
That allegation was fully investigated by a detective chief superintendent from a different division in the Metropolitan Police who found the complaint unsubstantiated. Both Detective Chief Inspector Brown and the detective sergeant who accompanied him to take down Mr. Weiner's statement denied that there was any shouting, undue pressure or aggression, although both agreed that Detective Chief Inspector Brown had been firm in pointing out that the facts as supplied by the police did not support Mr. Weiner's recollection.
The hon. Gentleman suggests that something went sadly wrong with the police investigation of an offence, either through incompetence or corruption, and that the matter does not appear to have been adequately and fairly investigated. There is no doubt that there was a delay between the time that the name of the Harrow Watch Company was first mentioned and the time its premises were searched. The inquiries made show that 210 this was caused by the efforts of the Boscombe police to ensure that their information was correct and reliable before they asked the London police to apply for a search warrant. I am sure the hon. Member would agree that the police should not apply for and execute a search warrant without being sure of their ground.
Both the Commissioner of Police and the Chief Constable of Dorset and Bournemouth were satisfied, after what I can assure the hon. Member were very full and detailed inquiries, that there was no reason to believe that the delay was deliberate. The only doubt raised about these inquiries was in connection with the behaviour of Detective Chief Inspector Brown, and the Commissioner was unable to pursue the allegation against him in the absence of any disinterested witness. Even if it had been proved, however, it would hardly have affected the essential point, that Mr. Weiner's recollection of his telephone conversation with Detective Constable Knight must have been mistaken.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman refers to the possibility of having an independent inquiry into this matter. He may recall that my right hon. Friend announced in July this year an outline scheme for introducing an independent element into the procedure for investigating complaints against the police. We are discussing these proposals with representatives of the police service and the local authority associations with a view to working out a fully-agreed scheme. Legislation will then be needed to put it into effect. Meanwhile the investigation of complaints under Section 49 of the Police Act 1964 remains entirely the responsibility of the chief officer of police concerned, and in this particular case there is no reason to believe that the relevant investigations have not been fully and properly conducted.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes past Twelve o'clock.