Ask most solicitors with any experience of police complaints and they will tell you not to bother, there is no chance of them being properly investigated. A small number of people feel so strongly about the bad way they have been treated and feel the evidence is so strong that they have solid grounds and decide to go ahead and make a complaint.
So what are the success rates of complaints, given that many are put off complaining, so mostly it is those with the most grounds that actually complain what might you expect, well 50% would be a poor job, perhaps 70% would be acceptable.
For purposes of this discussion we will consider Gloustershire Constabulary, there may possibly be worse ones.
Well how about 1% upheld. Now when I tell most people this they think I made it up, but you can find it in figures published on the net by the Inspector of Constabulary. What did the Inspector of Constabulary have to say about their 1% complains upheld figure.
In the report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary the complaints department within Gloucester Constabulary came under severe criticism, having fallen over recent years from finding themselves guilty of 9.8% of complaints in 1994 to only 1% in the latest report, he said “There has been a significant decline since 1994, when 9.8% of completed cases were substantiated down to 3.4% in 1997/98. Her Majesty’s Inspector considers there should be a greater willingness to substantiate complaints, even when disciplinary action against a specific officer is unlikely; corrective action cannot commence before the acknowledgement of a problem”. In relation to having the same people handling complaints and civil claims he said, “He is of the view, however, that whilst there should be a free flow of management information on civil claims and complaints, the processing of civil claims should be isolated from complaints investigations”.
The Gloustershire Police Professional standards department has two tasks to investigate complaints against officers and to defend every claim for damages. When you take in a a complain you are met by two people one who tries to talk you out of complaining, mentions such risks as being sued for defamation etc and the other from the team that defends claims for damages.
They then tell you how busy they are and how it is going to take them a considerable time to read what any average person could read within a few hours at most. Should you like me have produced a full report with really solid evidence of corrupt officers, perjury by officers etc, you will perhaps, be surprised when they tell you they 'see no wrongdoing by their officers'. They can of course say that I did not make an official compliant. I wrote a fully detailed report and sent it to the Chief Constable, with copies shown to the press, chairman of the police authority etc.
At an earlier point before many of the worst problems arose I sent a letter with many enclosures, letters etc to the police complaints authority, they sent them on to the offending force, and I received a letter from the force saying they had been passed onto their insurers. That's it, file'd and forgot.
So had I decided to make an official complaint through the police complains authority what would have happened, well the complain would have been sent to the professional standards department of the offending force to invest itself, or if the police complaints authority felt it was severe enough or involved very high officers, they would have sent it to a neighboring force to look at. So take my complain, I am able to prove corrupt actions by an inspector and perjury by the same officer, I am aware that people higher up had to be involved, but cannot prove who. So most likely it would have been passed to exactly the same people who had the attack of blindness when shown the report I produced and solid evidence available.
Had it been sent to a neighboring force, it is unlikely that the result would be different as they know that the next week or month there is going to be an across border investigation in the opposite direction, so would not want to upset the 'friendship' and co-operation, extended to neighboring forces in such maters.
This means you share everything you have with them, and allow them copies of everything you might feel of use later should you decide to take a civil action.
Various people have pointed out how information shown in relation to a complaint just happens to find its way into the defending bundle when you file an action for damages. In 'Police actions' by Richard Clayton and Hugh Tomlinson, page 70, they point out the one sided nature of information flow where information given to the complaint investigators ends up in their bundle yet information they collected is not disclosed to you. They also point out the risks of a defamation action or being charged with wasting police time. They also point out that the police complaints authority has power to dispense with an investigation if it believes the complainant is refusing or failing to make a statement.
Some complaints are said to be supervised by the police complaints authority. This however does not mean that are actually involved but look at the information given to them by the reporting officer and can say if they feel it was a complete investigation, but not being party to other information it is difficult how they can come to any other conclusion.
Don't expect headlines, to clear you name of for anything to happen.
The police complaints authority sites says (11/2002)
"Since 1988, the PCA has been calling for the restrictive rules that limit the release of information to be lifted. The Police Act says that the PCA can issue a statement:
...in the form of a summary or other general statement made by the PCA which does not identify the person from whom the information was received or any person to whom it relates.
This 'gagging clause' is totally against the spirit of freedom of information. Despite four Home Secretaries (Interior Ministers) promising to change the law, regrettably, nothing has happened."
As to the effects on officers when complaints are upheld, well maybe they will loose a days pay or be reprimanded, take a look at the inspector of constabularies reports to see just how inadequate the responses are.
If a member of the public is suspected of committing some minor act, they are keen to wreck lives, build a case at any cost, but when one of their own can be shown to be far more dishonest, generally a cover up occurs, and in many cases, as the statistical improvements caused by fake charges will have been appreciated these crooks get promoted.
Take a look at the Inspector of Constabularies report for the area you have been a victim in, and see what the percentage of admitted faults are and the actions taken against those officers where the case is proven. See the links section for links to this and other reports and information that may be relevant.
The system is about to change, the government and others fully recognize that the current corrupt system is un-defendable. Recently the home office tell me the new system will be in place by March or April 2003, but now we hear its April 2004, but so far we cant see any plan to make this happen. In the next section we look at the new arrangements if they eventually get implemented.