§ Sir Eldon Griffithsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on gratuities for police officers who are required to search and fingerprint badly decomposed, mutilated and extensively burnt bodies.
§ Mr. Giles ShawSince 1972 a gratuity has been payable to police officers who are required to search or fingerprint dead bodies in an advanced state of decomposition. The present rates are £15.50 where a body is searched and fingerprinted by the same officer on the same occasion and 10.35 where the tasks of searching and fingerprinting have to be undertaken by different officers, or on separate occasions. My right hon. Friend recently approved a Police Negotiating Board agreement extending the payment of the gratuity to cases in which the body was mutilated, decomposed or extensively burnt.