§ Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Newton.]
2.31 pm§ Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West)I wish to raise the issue of injuries sustained by persons in police custody and the need for an inquiry to establish its prevalence, its major causes and what measures need to be taken to diminish if not to eliminate it.
Before making the case I. should like to put the matter into context. My motives for pursuing the issue have been blatantly misconstrued in some quarters, whether deliberately or otherwise. I have said regularly on other occasions, and I want to put on record now, that this is in no sense a generalised campaign directed against the police. I am not a police basher. On the contrary, as I have said previously, I hold the British police in high regard. I believe that in many respects we have a police force that compares well with its counterparts in the United States and in EEC countries.
I recognise that the police regularly have a difficult and unpleasant task to perform in handling drunks on Saturday night, keeping order at football matches, where behaviour is sometimes appalling, and dealing with some demonstrations, where violence may be latent and sometimes actual. I am equally concerned about unjustified violence against the police, as are all law-abiding citizens who want the police to do their right and proper job.
I understand, too, that violence occurs when confrontation situations get out of hand, as in the handling of some marches or football matches. The specific point that I make is not about that. It is about one-to-one situations, where the person in custody is unarmed, defenceless and unresisting. It is a situation where the police are not under threat. It is not a contentious point to make that whatever may be the worsening standards of violence in society in general, the public do not expect the police to succumb to any such worsening standards when they are not themselves under threat, but rather to behave as properly responsible authorities.
I take the view that in a free, democratic, and civilised society any significant injuries sustained as a result of police maltreatment, where provocation is not involved, are unacceptable. Those responsible should be called to account. I believe strongly that there is a great deal worthy of praise about the British police, but that cannot be allowed to blind us to specific areas of operation where criticism has to be considered and perhaps changes made. It is in that spirit that I approach the debate.
My reasons for disquiet come from two sources. Apart from the severity of injuries sustained during arrest or detention, in certain cases at least, as revealed by the inquests into the deaths of Jimmy Kelly, Liddle Towers, James McGeown and the other 16 cases where an open verdict was returned by the coroner in the last decade, about 3,000 complaints are made each year against the police, alleging assault by policeman of prisoners in custody.
An indication that maltreatment in custody is far from rare, and more frequent than the public realise or the authorities admit, is that last year I received, unsolicited, more than 150 letters from all over the country, from both 605 men and women, middle-class and working-class people and middle-aged people and youths, claiming that they had suffered physical ill-treatment at police hands.
By telephone calls and letters, incorporating a standard set of detailed questions, I sought to verify those claims. I fully appreciate that they cannot be taken at face value. I compiled a dossier of 43 cases where the evidence appeared precise, extensive and hard enough to be convincing. I have sent the dossier to the Home Secretary. I shall make available, if requested, the background letters that I drew on when constructing the dossier.
I am the first to recognise that the coverage in the dossier is unsystematic. It was put together because my contacts happened to connect my name with news material detailing other cases during the past year. That is part of the strength of my point. Given the adventitious manner in which the dossier was collected, how many hundreds or thousands of cases would be brought to light if a systematic search were made?
The injuries revealed in the dossier are disquieting. One man reported a hairline fracture of the skull, suspected broken jaw, fracture of the cheekbone and substantial bruising. Another said that he was beaten up by four policemen in a police van and suffered injuries to his face, crutch and ribs. His wife was severely jostled and lost consciousness through being squeezed by an arm round her neck. Another man was found to have fractured ribs, and a consultant neurologist confirmed a haemorrhage behind one eye. Another was stopped in the street, together with his girl friend. He offered no violence, but intervened when his girl friend was knocked over. He was punched square in the face by the police officer, suffering a fractured jaw in three places. That injury required treatment for two months, during which he could hardly eat or sleep.
Those are extensive and severe injuries. I insist that they are not exceptional, according to the run of the dossier. I realise that judgment in such matters depends upon full knowledge of the exact circumstances, which is why I shall quote two cases from the dossier in slightly more detail. Anyone who reads the dossier—I trust that the Minister has read it—will agree that the cases are in no way exceptional.
The first case is No. 10 in the dossier, and concerns a married man in his twenties, living in Lancashire. His car, in which he was a passenger, was stopped while being driven by his wife. He refused to take a breathalyser test and the police officer suggested that he and his wife had changed places. He insisted that that was impossible because a police car had been on their tail. He was taken to a police station and assaulted, in full view of his wife. He received black eyes, a broken nose, perforated eardrums, a broken tooth and innumerable bruises. Photographs were taken by his wife. That man was held for 16 hours, and it was only when the shift changed that he was allowed to protest to a senior officer and to receive hospital treatment. That point is relevant to another matter that I shall raise later in my speech.
The second case is No. 22 in the dossier, and concerns a married man in his forties living in Cleveland. Three police officers came to his house and said that they were making inquiries about stolen television sets. He insisted that he knew nothing about them. They grabbed hold of him and handcuffed him, without mentioning arrest. They 606 put him in a cell at the police station, and when he rang the bell to gain attention six or seven police officers, he says, came in and gave him a tremendous kicking and punching. He nearly passed out later when a police officer kept banging his head against the charge counter. He was taken to hospital, where he received nine stitches in his left eye, and it was thought that his jaw was broken. There were also injuries to his ribs and back and for a week he needed help in walking.
The man's brother made an official complaint to the DPP, who said that there was insufficient evidence. The police later charged the man with assaulting them, but he was cleared of that charge in the Crown court and he has been granted a writ through the High Court to sue the chief constable. I understand that he is doing that, but the cost to him so far has been £1,000.
In the light of the dossier and the likely scale of the problem, what should be done? The Home Secretary's response, as revealed to me in a letter last year, which was reprehensibly complacent, is that there is an existing statutory procedure for dealing with complaints against the police and that complainants should follow that procedure. With that the Home Secretary washed his hands of that matter.
That fails to face the three fundamental defects in the present police complaints procedure. First, complaints against a policeman are made to another policeman. Secondly, the investigating officer compiles a secret report which the complainant does not see, and therefore he cannot refute counter allegations that the police officer may have made against him. Thirdly, the written report by the police is used exclusively by the DPP, without any direct questioning of the complainant or the policeman concerned, in deciding whether to prosecute.
Those are the reasons why only one in 200 complaints of alleged assault leads to prosecution and conviction. That ratio nowhere near reflects the balance of justice, as is shown by the success of recent civil actions in the courts against the police, even where, as in the recent case of Trevor Rhone, there were no direct witnesses, which is usually the stumbling block with the DPP.
In addition, it does not inspire public confidence when, of the 50 police officers who were convicted of assault in the past decade, 14 were given an absolute or conditional discharge, or were bound over or were given a suspended sentence, and of the 30 who were fined, almost all were fined £50 or less.
It is because the existing procedures are so patently useless—a mere constitutional fig leaf to preserve the facade of redress against abuse by those empowered with authority by the State—that the rejection of the mild reforms in the working party report on the matter two days ago was disappointing and deplorable.
I wish to propose four measures that I hope the Minister will take on board. First, an inquiry should be set up to investigate the prevalence of injuries in custody and the causes—for example, most obviously, pressure to extract confessions—and what should be done to remedy the problem. That could be either an internal investigation by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, a specific investigation initiated by the Home Secretary under section 32 of the Police Act 1964, or, as I would prefer, an inquiry involving at least some senior person appointed ad hoc from outside the police force, including representatives of lawyers, magistrates and perhaps directors of social service departments.
607 Secondly, the recent working party abortion of complaints procedure reform necessitates a major rethink in this area. I ask the Home Secretary to think seriously about the proposal that the only way to restore full public confidence in the independence and impartiality of the complaints procedure, especially in regard to assault cases, is to establish an independent police ombudsman, nationally or regionally.
Thirdly, I believe that the situation that I have revealed requires that a person in custody should have the right to call a doctor. The Home Secretary said in his reply to me on that matter:
I am not at present persuaded that there is a need to provide a statutory right in the latter case"—that is, to call a doctor—but this is a matter which I will take into account in my consideration of the report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure".I believe that, on the contrary, the evidence of physical injuries sustained in custody is sufficiently extensive and serious to show that there should be such a statutory right. If the right to see a solicitor is to be enshrined in law under the recommendations of the Royal Commission, surely the right to see a doctor in certain circumstances is even more compelling and urgent and should be entrenched at least as firmly in law.Finally, it should be made a requirement under the internal police disciplinary code that a police officer should record any incident in which he witnesses either injury being caused to a prisoner by another police officer or the consequences of an injury sustained by a prisoner. The Home Secretary in his reply to me of 9 March said that the police officer would be "neglecting his duty" if he failed to do that. I accept that, but I strongly contend that the evidence that I have brought forward shows that the present regualtions are demonstrably inadequate on this point. I hope that the Home Secretary will reconsider the matter.
In summary, I hope that the Home Secretary will take on board those four proposals. Whatever he does, he must act against the background that there is now manifest evidence that, at least in some cases and in some areas of the country, this occurs on a sufficient scale to warrant national concern and amounts to a breakdown of proper and accepted standards of police behaviour which cannot be condoned, cannot be ignored, and must be remedied.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was able to express his recognition of the very considerable difficulties that the police encounter in the exercise of the many and often very dangerous duties that we impose upon them for the protection of the community.
The hon. Member is, of course, right to emphasise the need to provide for the proper medical care and treatment of persons held in police custody; the importance of ensuring that a prisoner who is ill or injured shuld be able to see a doctor with the least possible delay; and the need to provide appropriate procedures for the investigation of any allegations of assault or other criticism that might be made against police officers. These are important requirements, and of course there are existing provisions designed to meet them. Those provisions apply generally in all police forces, and in respect of all persons held in police custody.
608 The hon. Member is, I believe, on less firm ground in seeking to justify his view that there is also need for a special inquiry into injuries an police custody. Indeed, his arguments in support of his view appear very similar to those that he advanced about deaths in police custody—a subject that was investigated by the Home Affairs Committee not very long ago. As the House is aware, that Committee's first and most important conclusion was that it had found no evidence to support generalised accusations of police brutality to those persons held in police custody.
The Home Affairs Committee also considered in particular the prescribed procedures for the medical care of persons in police custody, and concluded that, provided they are strictly adhered to, they were satisfactory. The procedures are set out in the Home Office consolidated circular on crime and kindred matters and are incoporated in the general orders of every police force. A copy of the circular is in the Library.
Under those procedures all prisoners are entitled to receive a medical examinaation by their own doctor or by the police surgeoon if they request it, and police officers have a clear and unqualified duty to comply with that request. It is also standard procedure that a doctor should be called if there is any suspicion that a detained person may be ill.
Notwithstanding those procedures, the hon. Member has proposed to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that prisoners should also have a statutory right to see their own doctor. I confirm that this is a matter that my right hon. Friend will take into account in his consideration of the report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure.
It is also standard procedure that a record must be made of any apparent injuries from which a prisoner may be suffering at the time when he is in custody, in whatever circumstances those injuries may have occurred so that if by wrongful action he sustains injuries at the hands of a police officer when in custody, that obligation to make a record of the matter applies just as much as if he sustains an injury through accident, or is injured when he is brought into custody.
There is no doubt whatever that a police officer would be neglecting his duty—as my right hon. Friend said in the letter that the hon. Gentleman quoted—under the existing discipline code, which is prescribed by Parliament, irrespective of any criminal considerations, if he were aware that a prisoner had been assaulted by other officers and he then failed to report it.
The prescribed punishments for offences against the discipline code include the punishments of dismissal from the force and the requirement to resign. It is difficult to see how the existing provisions in this respect could be made more effective, as the hon. Member suggested. It is important to remember that a police officer against whore an allegation is made is also entitled to be treated fairly. It is very much in the public interest that he should be, for if he is treated unfairly and made the subject of unfair or dishonest allegations, which receive considerable publicity, it may be many months—indeed, more than a year—before the matter is tried and the falsity of those allegations, if they are false, established. Then it sometimes receives much less publicity than did the original allegations. So it is important to remember that police officers are entitled to fair treatment, along with everybody else.
609 The hon. Member referred to the latest figures relating to deaths in police custody, which were published this week. He has mentioned that previously. There is a rise this year in the total. It is right that these matters should be a subject for concern in the House, and I think it right that I should deal with that aspect of the matter.
The total for 1980, ensuing from whatever cause, was 63. This was higher than the numbers recorded in previous years but, as is to be expected with such small numbers, there is a great deal of variation from year to year. About half of those deaths—35 of them—occurred in or on the way to hospital. An inquest was held in all but five of the cases. In those cases in which an inquest verdict was given, death was found to be due to natural causes in 17, misadventure in 22, accidental death in nine, and suicide in six.
Every death is, of course, a matter for regret and for concern, but I do not—as the hon. Member has in the past, at any rate, seemed inclined to do—draw the conclusion that these deaths occurred because of misconduct or neglect by the police. The number of deaths in police custody remains tiny compared with the number of arrests. We shall be publishing detailed figures relating to these deaths in a forthcoming Home Office statistical bulletin.
I turn now to the question of the procedures for the investigation and consideration of complaints against the police. Like my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State, I share the hon. Member's concern that the arrangements for dealing with such complaints should command public confidence. The effectiveness of the complaints machinery is, we believe, an important aspect of relations between police and public generally. That is why the Home Secretary welcomed the triennial review report of the Police Complaints Board, based on experience accumulated since its establishment by the Police Act 1976.
Although the point tends to be obscured in some speeches, the board is, of course, an entirely independent body. It was established precisely to introduce an independent element into the consideration of the disciplinary aspects of complaints. This is in addition to the independent element provided by the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to any criminal aspects. The board concluded that a complaints system on the lines now laid down should continue, though it is, in its view, capable of improvement. It did not favour an extension of its role to cover wider issues arising on complaints beyond the disciplinary aspects. As to the actual investigation of complaints, the board considered the idea of an independent investigative body, but rejected it as being neither practicable nor desirable. It did, however, recommend 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.
The Home Secretary set up a working party, under Lord Plowden's chairmanship, to consider how the board's recommendation for an independent element in the investigation of such complaints against the police might be implemented. The working party's report was published a few days ago. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in reply to a question on the same day, by my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. 610 Mates), we shall be considering further, in consultation with the Police Advisory Board, what changes, if any, may be necessary in the present arrangements.
The Home Secretary made it clear that we regard it as important that all concerned should have in mind the need to maintain public confidence in the complaints system as an important aspect of the relations between the police and the public and the role that it can play in striking a balance between the powers of the police and he rights of the individual. Since only two days have elapsed I do not think that I can be expected to go further this afternoon. I would point out, however, that the Home Secretary specifically invited comments on the working party's report, from Members of Parliament and others, and I am happy to assure the hon. Member that what he said today will be taken fully into account in our further consideration of these matters.
On the general question of prosecutions and securing legitimate rights for persons detained in police custody, I would point out that these matters were dealt with in some detail in the report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure, which we currently also have under review. Hon. Members will be aware that in dealing with the rights of suspects the commission placed particular emphasis on the need for fuller and more detailed recording by the police and on the importance of close supervision by senior officers. In general, it saw this as the most effective check on possible abuses by the police of their powers. We are, of course, particularly fortunate in that the chairman of the Royal Commission, Sir Cyril Philips, has recently been appointed chairman of the Police Complaints Board.
As for civil actions against the police, it is, of course, open to anyone to bring an action if he considers that he has cause to do so. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that this opportunity existed, and referred to cases. I realise that the costs and time involved in such actions may be relevant factors, but where an action is brought the judgment is entirely a matter for the court, in the light of all the available evidence. As hon. Members are aware, the decision turns on the balance of probabilities as distinct from, in a criminal court, proof beyond reasonable doubt.
§ Mr. MeacherThe hon. and learned Gentleman has not dealt with the substance of my point about the dossier. I do not think that anyone reading it could say that it indicated that either the complaints procedure or civil actions provided an adequate way of dealing with the problems involved. Will he therefore reconsider whether some inquiry into the overall problem is needed? On the question of the reporting of injuries, is he saying that he believes that all injuries sustained in custody are fully and adequately reported? If so, how does he explain that civil actions have sometimes led to a different view being taken?
§ Mr. MayhewThe hon. Gentleman knows that I have already made it clear that I do not consider that there is a case for an inquiry of any kind, or of the nature that he has suggested, into injuries incurred in custody. I have drawn attention to the fact that procedures exist and to the fact that the Home Secretary and the Government will be considering the suggestions and the recommendations by the Royal Commission. However, it is not for the Home Secretary to investigate individual cases. When he referred to the existence of the independent Police Complaints Board the hon. Gentleman said scornfully that my right 611 hon. Friend has washed his hands of the matter. It is because Governments and the Executive should not be involved that Parliament set up that procedure.
I have indicated that the question of possible improvements in the procedures for the investigation and consideration of complaints is currently under review. This will consider all the suggestions that have been made or may be made in the future. The question of establishing a statutory right to see one's own doctor will be taken into 612 account. We do not seek to argue that the existing procedures are incapable of any improvement, but nor do we believe that they suffer from the grave defects alleged by the hon. Member. In the light of all the consideration that is being given to these matters, I am satisfied that no additional inquiry of the kind demanded is either desirable or necessary.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Three o'clock.