HC Deb 28 April 1981 vol 3 cc761-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Berry.]

12 midnight

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West)

The case for reform of the police complaints procedure has clearly been made out in the past. I have little doubt that it is accepted, even in the Home Office, that something must be done.

When such a moderate, not to say anodyne, body as the Police Complaints Board expresses its concern for change, as it recently has, the writing is firmly on the wall. When an effective and publicly credible police complaints system is one of the preconditions for any reform of police powers along the lines recommended in January by the Royal Commission on criminal procedure, the incentive for Government action is clear. Moreover, there is now an obvious need for a ministerial statement on what the Government propose in the light of the slap in the face administered by the working party on an independent element in the investigation of companies against the police. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity tonight to make a long-awaited statement.

The case for reform has been made before and need be only briefly repeated. First, a complaint against a policeman is dealt with by another policeman, albeit a senior one, and not independently. The Police Complaints Board has no part in the recording or investigation of complaints. Secondly, the report compiled by the senior police officer is not shown to the complainant so that he or she never has a chance to check its accuracy or comprehensiveness, or to reply to any counter-allegations which the policeman concerned may have made. Thirdly, it is on the basis of that secret police report, without any direct interviewing of either the complainant or of the policeman concerned, that the Director of Public Prosecutions decides whether to prosecute.

All those three facets of current procedure are wrong and cannot be justified. However, what I have said involves criticism, not of those senior police officers who operate the system but only of the system itself within which they have to work. The Superintendents' Association has insisted that its members investigate thoroughly. I am sure that that is generally true. I am saying not that they are not conscientious and sincere—far from it—but that the system is faulty. The central flaw is the lack of due independence, and it is not rectified by the role of the Police Complaints Board.

In 1978 and 1979, the board reviewed the 24,315 cases in which, following police investigation of complaints, chief officers had decided to take no disciplinary action. In only 33 of those cases—0.13 per cent.—did the board query the police finding. To cap it all, in each of those cases agreement was finally reached with the police.

Such a record completely undermines the board's claim in the triennial review that the independent element in the present system rests, in essence, on the Board's power to direct a chief officer to prefer a disciplinary charge against the officer who is the subject of a complaint. The board's words condemn its performance out of its own mouth. In practice, it has merely rubber-stamped police actions. As the new chairman said—despite the oddity of the metaphor—the board has kept so low a profile that it has climbed into the ditch. As a result, the police's resistance, even to modest change, and the Police Complaints Board's conspicuous failure to assert its independence have combined to foster a deep mistrust of the system. The board's figures support that. In its review of 1978 it revealed that it was attracting only three-quarters of the expected total of cases and that as many as 40 per cent. of the complaints were later withdrawn. The board's latest report also states that it has noted a tendency in some cases to discount evidence which supported the complainant more readily than that which supported the police … in some cases we have felt that the investigating officer might have uncovered more evidence if the interviewing of police witnesses had been more rigorous instead of being limited to a request for a statement. I wish to cite two cases from my dossier of 55 police assault complaints drawn to my attention over the past year. The Minister knows all about them. I have carefully checked them. They illustrate the two points made by the board. The first is No. 21. It concerns a man in Liverpool, who, returning home from an evening at a friend's house, was stopped near his home by two police officers in a patrol car. He was verbally abused, and his asking the reason for his arrest was ignored. At the police station, after he had got out of the car he was grabbed by the shoulders, manhandled towards the station door and rammed head first into it, injuring his eye so that he could not see out of it. First aid was refused. He was charged first with refusing to answer any of the police officers' questions. When he said that that was quite untrue, he was charged with disorderly conduct. In court he was charged with shouting and singing in the street and it was alleged that, despite being cautioned and told to go home, he persisted until arrested, which he stated was totally untrue.

This man complained against the two police officers for assault, but his complaint was rejected by the DPP and by the Liverpool police. It is interesting to note that, according to a summary of the chief constable's account of events, which was obtained from the Home Office on behalf of the man involved by his Conservative Member of Parliament, the injuries received were the result of his struggling and resisting the police officers' hold upon him and were an accident. Both statements, he says, are absolutely untrue. That is one disturbing case.

The next case illustrates the second point made by the board. The man involved is married. The incident occurred at Royston, Hertfordshire, although he comes from London. He was visiting his daughter's house with his wife. They were invited in by a man they did not know who suddenly turned round, forced his wife out of the door and shut the husband's leg in the door. His wife called a police car. The police were responding to a burglary call. They arrived, dragged him clear from the door and forced him into a police car. He has a crippled arm. In the police cell his belt, shoes and glasses were taken from him, leaving him almost blind. His wallet was also taken. When it was later returned, his former wife's gold ring was missing. When he said that he would make a complaint, he was intimidated and threatened that he would be sued. In the cells he had to go to the toilet five times as he was taking diet pills. Each time, he was made to stand in his socks in a large pool of urine. He was refused treatment for his injuries. Finally, the police said that they had made a mistake about the allegations of burglary but that to cover them holding him he would be charged with breach of the peace.

This man also made a complaint. He received a letter in reply from the Police Complaints Board stating that the complaint had been thoroughly investigated, but he insists, for example, that he and his wife were refused the right to identify the six police officers concerned. That is also a disturbing case.

Lest it be thought that those cases lack credibility, I also read from a feature in The Times on 18 April, only 10 days ago, quoting a middle ranking police officer currently serving in a provincial force.

It states: During the interview the police expressed surprise over some of the complaints which the Director of Public Prosecutions had said called for no further action. To quote the police officer's own words: In one case of violence sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions there was no way in the world that the chap"— that is the police officer— should not have been proceeded against for actual bodily harm. The newspaper report also stated: He also spoke of a failure by police to investigate thoroughly some cases in which violence had been alleged. It was believed better to settle them behind closed doors than damage morale by public examination, which could also hurt good officers' reputations. Because the Police Complaints Boards recognised that unexplained injuries sustained during arrest or while in subsequent police custody … cause the greatest damage to good relations between the police and the public", it recommended a specialised body of investigating officers recruited by secondment from all police forces.

It is a measure of the paralysis of the authorities that the working party set up to examine this modest proposal, composed of seven senior polike officers and the Home Office establishment, turned down the recommendation, inadequate though in my view it is. The reasons given in paragraph 18 of the White Paper are piffling, if not to say almost flippant. Moreover, the reasons given by the Police Complaints Board in its triennial review report in paragraphs 64 to 67 for rejecting an independent investigatory body are also thoroughly bogus, in my view. Since they are the only reasons which have been given officially, they are worth citing.

First, on the size of the problem at 7,000 complaints annually, an independent body would face the same work load as the police do at present and it could use the same resources in terms of money, thus releasing police officers for police duties. Secondly, it is said that police already cover the whole country. In answer to that, an independent body clearly could and should be regionalised. Thirdly, it is said that the information is already in the hands of the police anyway. But the police investigating officer has to inspect the files. There is no reason why any additional work would fall upon an independent investigator with the same powers of access. Fourthly, it is said that police investigators are senior officers drawn from another force or division. This does not lessen the public perception still of the police investigating the police.

Fifthly, it is said that independent investigators would need to have the powers of a constable which would create conflicts of interest and effectively two police forces. In answer to that, the powers vested in an independent body limited to the investigation of complaints need not represent either any threat to or any incompatibility with ordinary police powers for ordinary police duties. Finally, from where could the independent investigators be recruited? Surely the answer to that is that they could come from several sources—from business, from the professions, from administration, persons who had retired early for redundancy or other reasons as well as retired lawyers, social workers, probation officers, and so on.

Therefore, I believe that there are no genuine reasons preventing the establishment of a real, independent investigatory body of an Ombudsman type, except police anxiety, no doubt, which I accept needs to be respected and is a reason why the reform should be achieved slowly and by stages. I hope that the Minister will at least indicate tonight the first steps the Government propose to take for the more serious complaints.

I hope, too, that we shall have an early ministerial statement covering several other related reforms. There are four that should be included. First, statements taken during an investigation should be shown to the complainant. Secondly, more serious complaints should be routed via the relevant policy authority so that it is better informed of public grievances in the area and can also act as a final court of appeal, requesting further investigation if the DPP under the present system turns down a complaint.

Thirdly, the chief constable should be empowered, as indeed the Police Complaints Board suggests, to prosecute in minor cases or refer cases to the Police Complaints Board with his assessment that the matter be made the subject of disciplinary charges. Lastly, a decision by the DPP not to prosecute should no longer be regarded as disallowing disciplinary proceedings, since it surely cannot on any basis amount to a breach of double jeopardy.

These are modest reforms, but they would all help. I stress again, however, that the essence is the introduction of a genuinely independent element. I trust that the Government will take that on board tonight.

12.15 am
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)

I am afraid that I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's opening assertion that he makes no criticism of the thoroughness or sincerity with which senior police officers carry out their duties to investigate complaints made against the police. I believe that the greater part of what followed in his speech showed that he did question the thoroughness and the sincerity of their investigations. There is no real reason for the hon. Gentleman's demand for independent investigation unless it proceeds from that premise.

I must say that I think it a misfortune for the police service and for the country that five weeks and four days after he last raised the subject in the House the hon. Gentleman again insinuates that the police complaints procedure is quite generally improperly implemented by the police themselves. On 20 March he said that he was not directing any generalised campaign … against the police. That compared oddly with the conclusion to that speech, in which he alleged that police brutality to prisoners in their custody amounts to a breakdown of proper … standards of police behaviour warranting "national concern", to quote his evaluation, at least in some cases and in some areas of the country. I observed in my reply on that occasion that the Home Affairs Committee of the House, in contrast to the hon. Member, had found no evidence to support generalised accusations of police brutality to those persons held in police custody."—[Official Report, 20 March 1981; Vol. 1, c. 604–8.] From that premise, the hon. Member argued that the very low number of convictions for assault obtained against police officers is evidence of the fact that the police complaints procedure is fundamentally defective. It is noteworthy that the first defect which he itemised then, as it was the first defect that he itemised today, was that complaints against a policeman are made to another policeman.

A perfectly clear implication is intentionally made here. It is that those senior police officers—drawn, as they have to be, either from a different force or from a different chain of command within the same force—who have the statutory duty of investigating complaints deal with those complaints less than conscientiously. That is the only inference that can be drawn from the hon. Member's primary criticism that it is police officers who deal with complaints against the police. I believe that it is far better to be open about that than to insinuate it. The Government reject that insinuation as an unjustified slur on extremely hard-working senior officers in the police service.

I would point out that the police service itself is not reluctant to enforce its own discipline on its officers by means of disciplinary charges. Two-thirds of the cases in which such charges are brought arise from internal investigations instituted by the police themselves. One-third arises from complaints by members of the public.

It would be idle, of course, to pretend that complaints made against the police do not present Parliament with a serious and a difficult problem. That problem, in the words of the Police Complaints Board in its 1980 triennial report, is one of securing an independent judgment on a complaint without in doing so undermining the authority of the chief officer or distracting the attention of the police from the primary duty to prevent and detect crime. Our present statutory procedure for police complaints was completed by the Labour Government in which Mr. Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary in 1976, building upon the Police Act of 1964. The present Government are anxious to consider whether five years later there are any respects in which it may now be in need of improvement.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made clear and as I made plain in the House only five weeks ago, we are already engaged upon that task. But I say here and now that no changes that might ultimately be made will stem from any lack of confidence in the integrity of the senior police officers who today investigate complaints. The Government's confidence in that is absolute. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's repetitious attacks wilt not make their task more difficult.

Mr. Meacher

The Minister alleges that I made insinuations about the quality of work of senior officers. At the beginning of my speech I made it clear that I was not saying that primarily but that my remarks were directed at the system. Will the Minister note that the Police Complaints Board, not I, said: We have noted a tendency in some cases to discount evidence which supported the complainant more readily than that which supported the police. The Minister should withdraw his insinuation against me.

Mr. Mayhew

I stated at the outset that I was unfortunately unable to accept from the hon. Gentleman that he was not casting aspersions upon the thoroughness with which senior officers investigate complaints. The reason for that is that he bases his demand for changes upon complaints that derive only from lack of thoroughness or lack of sincerity by the police officers in their investigations. The instances which he cited tonight support that interpretation.

I have emphasised that the Government are prepared to investigate whether there are respects in which the present procedure is capable of being improved. I do not suppose that it is perfect.

When discussing complaints against the police, I think that we should do the police a grave disservice at this time if we did not show our awareness and appreciation of the difficult and dangerous task that society requires of them. Only eight days before the hon. Member secured his last Adjournment debate, Police Sergeant Hawcroft—married with and infant son—was stabbed to death in Bradford. We have, I regret to say, seen sufficient evidence lately of the most violent attacks upon the police with numerous injuries resulting, to know just what they sometimes have to face in protecting the interests of the community as a whole, including the personal safety of its politicians. I believe that at this time in particular we owe them a balanced rather than a biased interest in the affairs of their service.

Independent elements are already built into the present complaints machinery. I shall describe briefly the essentials of the system. Section 49 of the Police Act 1964 requires the chief officer of each police force to ensure that complaints against members of his force are recorded and investigated. The investigation is conducted by a senior officer from a different division within the force or from an outside force.

Police officers are subject to the criminal law like anyone else and must ever remain so. When it is alleged that an officer has committed a criminal offence the chief officer must, unless he is satisfied that no criminal offence has been committed, send the report of the investigation to the Director of Public Prosecutions. That is the first independent element. The Director recommends whether the officer should be charged with a criminal offence.

Once any question of criminal proceedings has been settled the deputy chief constable decides whether the circumstances are such as to justify bringing a disciplinary charge against the officer in accordance with the Police (Discipline) Regulations. This is where the second independent element—the Police Complaints Board—comes in. The Police Act 1976 requires the deputy chief constable to send to the board a copy of the investigating officer's report, together with a memorandum stating whether he has decided to bring disciplinary proceedings against the officer concerned and, if he has not, his reasons for not doing so. If the board disagrees with the decision of the deputy chief constable not to bring proceedings it may recommend and, if necessary, direct that charges be brought.

The hon. Gentleman appears to base much of his criticism of the present arrangements on the statistics for criminal and disciplinary proceedings arising from complaints. So far as concerns criminal proceedings, it is not for me to comment on the decisions of the Director of Public Prosecutions in complaints cases that are referred to him; that is a matter within the responsibilities of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. As to disciplinary proceedings arising from complaints, the most recent figures are those given in the Police Complaints Board's annual report for 1980. I acknowledge the quotation that the hon. Gentleman took from that report. However, he is calling for an investigating officer or body that is independent of the police. The Police Complaints Board points to the problems that an independent investigating body would face. It considers them to be insuperable. I complain that the hon. Gentleman's insistence on an independent body derives from his belief that the investigations that are carried out are not occasionally, but generally lacking in thoroughness.

It would be quite wrong, however, if the impression were given that this was the full extent of disciplinary and other action taken in relation to complaints in 1980, and the reference to the figures alone does not take into account factors such as the influence the board feels its very presence has on the investigation of complaints. In all, charges were preferred in respect of 176 complaints, including 55 where the deputy chief constable had preferred charges which were admitted by the officers concerned and 107 where the deputy chief constable had decided to prefer charges which were denied. In addition to cases involving formal charges, there were 1,294 complaints—about 8½ per cent. of the total—where a warning or advice was given to the officers concerned. The hon. Gentleman referred to the recent unauthorised disclosure of papers relating to a Home Office research study. It is important that the nature of the material referred to in the article in The Times should be properly understood. As I have already informed the House on a previous occasion, it consists of unrevised drafts from working documents attached to an uncompleted research study which began in 1978. It was not the purpose of this study to examine the structure of the police complaints system. Its purpose was to examine the way in which the Metropolitan Police deal with complaints from black complainants and white complainants, respectively. The idea was to compare two years, 1973 and 1978—that is, before and after the establishment of the Police Complaints Board. This research has been conducted with the full cooperation of the commissioner, and on completion it will be discussed with him, together with the question of the timing and form of its publication.

I emphasise, therefore, that we are not talking about a completed research study whose results have been properly verified and are ready for publication. These documents are still very much in the working stage, and are subject to further checking and interpretation. Modifications could well be found to be necessary, although of course I do not know whether that will be the case. At all events, it would be quite wrong now to publish them, or to present them as a firm piece of evidence to be taken into account in any decision about altering the present system of police complaints. Further work is necessary on the project before its content can be properly finalised, or any conclusions drawn from it.

The Government recognise that there may well be scope for improving the existing arrangements. I think that we must start with the first triennial review report of the Police Complaints Board, which discussed a number of alternative proposals. Its conclusion was that a complaints system on the lines now laid down should continue, although it is, in its view, capable of improvement. As has been said, its main recommendation was that complaints of serious injury should be investigated by a specialist body of investigating officers, recruited by secondment from police forces but answerable to someone other than a police officer. Otherwise, it says, the investigation of complaints should remain the responsibility of the police.

Since then we have had the report of the working party set up by the Home Secretary to consider how the board's recommendation for an independent element in the investigation of complaints might be implemented. The working party concluded that the board's recommendation was practicable, subject to qualifications. It did not reject the board's recommendation. Its job was to consider how it might be implemented. This it did. It considers that either the chairman of the board or the Director of Public Prosecutions should be responsible for the supervision of the investigation in the prescribed cases.

I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. The Home Secretary has specifically invited comments on the working party's report. All the suggestions that have been made will be carefully considered in the course of this review. It is worth repeating that my right hon. Friend and all his Ministers attach great weight to the need to maintain public confidence in the complaints system as an important aspect of relations between the police and the public. The——

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock.