"Unfair probes by the police watchdog into Surrey Police officers must end"

3 January 2018

Unfair probes by the police watchdog into Surrey Police officers must end - as they are taking a huge toll on the police officers concerned and are costing the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds.

That’s the view of Surrey Police Federation Chair Mel Warnes who has looked back on 2017 and how 10 of her innocent police officer colleagues faced lengthy and damaging investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

For nothing more than doing their job.

All of the Surrey Police officers in question - who had restrictions planned on their policing careers whilst under investigation by the IPCC - either ended up with a case not proven against them or with no case to answer.

And while police officers have no problem with being accountable for their actions, Mel believes the IPCC has been trying to justify its existence - and its big budget from Government – by trying to claim wrongdoing by Surrey Police Officers.

The IPCC will become the Independent Office for Police Conduct on 8 January.

Mel said: “The biggest issue for us has been the stress and anxiety that the officers have had to face for not only being investigated, but being restricted from the job that they enjoy doing.

“And the impact of all this on not just themselves, but their colleagues, their managers and their families in particular as they are not able to have any career progression, not working the hours that they would like to work and not doing the job that they want to do.

“The IPCC are taking on more and more investigations. They’re having a lot of money invested in them by the Government, and therefore they are justifying their existence through taking on investigations, investigations which are not timely.

“All of those five separate investigations, range from a year up to four years, and that is unacceptable. Unacceptable not only for the officers under investigation, but also the tax payers.

“This has a massive impact on the local taxpayers, who are paying for a service from police officers that, when you put a large amount of innocent officers under investigation on restricted duties, they are not getting.

“Added to that are that the tax payers are having to pay for misconduct hearings and paying for barristers to work on these cases that have no outcome or should not have been heard in the first place.

“And quite rightly no outcome, because these officers under the spotlight have just been doing their job.”

Mel added: “It is right in some cases that police officers do need to be investigated and their actions scrutinised, but investigators and the public need to be aware of what the police can do lawfully around, for instance, use of force - and the associated training officers have had around that.

“Officers have no issue with being held accountable - but they do ask for fairness and balance when it comes to the IPCC. And we have not been seeing that. It’s a disgrace.”’

She concluded: “My hope for 2018 is for fewer IPCC investigations and fewer directed or recommended hearings for officers. There needs to be an understanding of operational policing by the IPCC and some proportionality when they scrutinise.

“On the rare occasions when investigations do need to take place we need to see more timely investigations by the IPCC, which means that officers are not placed on restricted duties for huge lengths of time.

“And our vow is that we as a Police Federation will always be there to support our colleagues through whatever it is they’re facing.”