Over-long And Disproportionate Investigations Into Officers Create Culture Of Fear

Investigations into officers accused of misconduct are taking far too long and are breeding a culture of fear, Hampshire Police Federation has said.

Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said the “pendulum had swung too far the other way” in the misconduct arena and that some Hampshire officers had been investigated for several years as the process was dragged out.

She was speaking after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley criticised the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) and said the system had got “out of kilter”. Speaking at the John Harris Memorial Lecture, Sir Rowley said officers had lost confidence in the conduct system and that they were surrendering their public order accreditation, Tasers and firearms, as they felt they were no longer supported in doing high-risk jobs.

Sir Rowley said: “The system that holds officers to account needs to pass the common-sense test. It should be timely, fair and respected by both officers and the public. It isn’t.”

Zoë Wakefield said: “I agree with Sir Rowley 100%. In light of some really high-profile cases, there has obviously been an increase in scrutinising officers who are not behaving appropriately, and dealing with them.

“But the pendulum’s swung too far the other way. Some officers now feel if they breathe the wrong way they’ll get served misconduct papers. It’s creating a culture of fear among officers; they think they’re going to end up being investigated and possibly losing their jobs, when they’ve done everything in good faith.

“I’ve been supporting an officer who’s being investigated over a domestic matter. It’s been going on since April and he’s only recently just had his ‘no further action’ decision, more than six months on. The impact on him is absolutely huge. It will affect him for the rest of his career – that’s if he stays in policing. We speak to so many people who feel that they’ve been treated so appallingly that they don’t even want to stay in policing.”

Zoë continued: “I’ve got cases that are approaching three years, and the problem then is when you get to any kind of court case or misconduct hearing, witnesses can’t answer all the questions because they can’t remember. That’s not fair on the witness, it’s not fair on the officer that’s under misconduct, and it’s not fair on the organisation because the best evidence isn’t being heard. If the process was much quicker, we’d get better evidence and we’d get fairer outcomes for everyone involved.”

She agreed with Sir Rowley that there needed to be a common-sense approach, adding: “We need to decide: what do we really need to investigate? Do we really need to investigate this at the most severe level, or can this be a conversation between the officer and their manager to ensure that whatever’s happened doesn’t happen again?

“Those who are alleged to have done some really serious stuff, we don’t want them in the organisation any more than the force does, and we will assist the force with making sure that they go through a fair process and are exited from the organisation. But too many good, decent officers are being caught up in this.”