Guardian -Comment is Free

Police reform bill ends accountability

Without a dedicated regulatory body, the chance of transparent adjudication into complaints against the police will be lost



Sophie Khan guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 April 2011 11.28 BST Article history

Thankfully, last month's anti-cuts march in central London did not lead to the kind of police brutality witnessed during earlier demonstrations. The IPCC received 111 complaints in connection with the student protests in November and December 2010. Nonetheless, UK Uncut protesters say the police "tricked" them during their occupation of Fortnum and Mason, giving them assurances that they would be able to leave the shop without interference and subsequently arresting them as they left. Should any of the campaigners choose to file a complaint about their treatment, the current structure of recording and handling complaints against the police will ensure it is recorded so that grievances can be identified and lessons learned. But will that still be the case if the police reform and social responsibility bill comes into force in May next year? I suspect not.


The bill, which is making its way through parliament, will bring the most radical change to the police complaints procedure we have seen since the reforms that followed the death of Stephen Lawrence. The Police Reform Act 2002, which replaced the much-criticised Police Complaints Authority with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, has in recent years been the gatekeeper to all complaints against the police and the only body to which complainants can appeal following local and supervised investigations by the police's professional standards departments. But that will no longer be the case from May 2012. The safeguards that were put in place by the publication of the IPCC's statutory guidance in April 2010 will be removed and an unregulated system of police complaints will result.


Schedule 14 of the bill at paragraph 8 (5) will give police forces unfettered discretion in determining which complaints they wish to record and – although, as exists today, there will be an appeal process to the IPCC for non-recording – one suspects the police will put up a fight when their authority is challenged.


But the most shocking and controversial aspect of the bill will be the loss of the independent appeal to the IPCC following a local or supervised investigation. This important element of the complaints procedure, although it does not uphold all appeals, does ensure that a fresh review of the complaint is carried out. Where the appeal is upheld, a reinvestigation is ordered.


My reading of the bill suggests these concerns have not been identified or taken on board and will become commonplace under an unregulated police complaints procedure, which is already open to abuse by the police. It is highly unlikely that investigations into complaints made by protestors such as Jody McIntyre, who was pulled out of his wheelchair and dragged across the road by a Metropolitan police officer during a student protest in December, would even be recorded in the future.


The powers that will be meted out to the chief officer as provided by paragraph 22 of schedule 14 are neither welcomed nor sought by the public. Once the bill is enacted it will end the only real opportunity for a transparent adjudication into complaints against the police, other than civil claims brought in court.


These reforms are in stark contrast to the home secretary's proposals to make the police service more accountable to local people. Without an external body to regulate the complaints, where is the accountability? The lazy provisions of the bill at paragraph 7 of the schedule state that the local policing body (the police and crime commissioners or the mayor's office for policing and crime) may direct the chief officers to take such steps as the local policing body thinks appropriate in order for chief officers to comply with their obligations. However, these provisions do not go far enough, especially as the local policing body will not have the power of an ombudsman.


Without the presence of a dedicated regulatory body for the police, many abuses will go unchallenged. The only viable option available against the chief officers would be to bring judicial review proceedings to challenge their decision. But with legal aid cuts on there way, will that avenue be open? We may see a return to a pre-Macpherson style landscape in policing, where the rights of the public and the protestor went unrecognised and the words "police" and "accountability" would not even appear in the same sentence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/apr/08/police-reform-bill-accountability