Federation on Accountability: Hardworking decent professional officers are being hounded

24 October 2024

Firearms police officers facing trial over shooting suspects will receive anonymity up to the point of conviction, the Home Secretary has said.

Yvette Cooper's announcement comes days after police officer Sgt Martyn Blake was cleared of murdering Chris Kaba.

Anonymity will stand on the rare instances firearms officers in England and Wales face criminal charges, Cooper said.

The reform to anonymity is part of a new package aimed at police accountability, which includes several measures proposed by the previous Government in March.

They include:

- Speeding up the process for the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog to send cases to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

- Raising the threshold for the IOPC to refer officers to the CPS

- Ensuring the highly specialised nature of certain policing tactics and tools is reflected in investigative guidance

Andy Symonds, Chair of Norfolk Police Federation, said: “The announcement from the Home Secretary is welcomed. But sadly comes too late for Sgt Martyn Blake who is now dealing with all the intolerable pressures that he’s been dealing with over the last 2 years. I want to take the opportunity to send our best wishes to Sgt Blake. We stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

“He is a hardworking, brave, committed professional simply doing his job that has been asked of him by all of us be that the Commissioner and public. He should never have stood trial. He deserves our best wishes and support. He is now waiting to find out if he will face a misconduct process.

“All I can say is that it would be a travesty if he were to face any misconduct proceedings. As the Commissioner has said, if the system that holds police officers to account continues down the current path we will crush the spirit of every police officer who is going about their business fighting crime.

“I hope that the recent announcement will go some way to re-balancing the system back to an even keel. As currently the keel has been steadily moving to a position of where it is today in that officers are finding that the threshold for which they are being taken through the misconduct process is extremely low and no account seems to be taken of the fact that officers work in fast moving dynamic and dangerous situations.

“Officers accept and have no issue with accountability and scrutiny but what they can’t accept is the current system which we often see producing perverse outcomes and hardworking decent professional officers being hounded and in some cases dismissed unfairly.

“I acknowledge that there are police officers that must to go through an investigation and in some cases be dismissed. But what we currently have is a system that is capturing good, decent, professional officers into this system and this is wrong and had to stop.

“If it continues then we will see many more officers making decisions out on the street with the thoughts in their heads that if they deal with an incident professionally and honestly they will find themselves subject to a lengthy investigation and potentially lose their jobs.

“This would be an awful place to be for the officer and the public. I’m aware from conversations with officers that many are thinking this way already.

“And this will make us all less safe when officers are concerned about how they will be dealt with if they take action according to their training. We need to return to a situation in which when officers deal with an incident, according to their training, professionally and diligently that if an investigation starts then it’s dealt with rapidly, the officer has the backing and support from the Chief Officers both internal and external support.

“These officers subject of these investigations have families and to hold them in stasis for years with the severe anxiety that they may lose their career, income and reputation is totally unacceptable. I see the emotional turmoil with the officers I represent going through these processes.  

“I will be meeting soon with as many of the Norfolk MP’s that will agree to meet me and on the agenda will be police accountability and how they can support Norfolk officers in their role as MPs.”