Cleaning up the police image
01 January 1991
Cleaning up the police image
artdoc October=1993
The Commissioner-in-waiting of the Met, Paul Condon, revealed his
priorities in a speech in early December. His call for a return
to basic policing and a fast response emergency service, visible
policing, and care for victims, not social engineering, was a
clear message to the liberals that `gimmicks' such as community
policing and consultation were on the way out. Having shown his
credentials as an authoritarian of the old school, he continued
that `heavy-handedness with prisoners and lack of integrity in
producing evidence' were no longer tolerated. `To say the ends
justify the means is dangerous,' he said (Independent 3.12.92).
Other than these comments, there was nothing to indicate what
Condon proposes to do about the state of the police, in whom
public confidence is at an all-time low, with nearly half of the
respondents in a recent survey for the Solicitors' Journal saying
that they had lost their faith in the police following the
Guildford 4, Birmingham 6 and other miscarriages of justice.
Proposals to clean up the police's act came from other quarters,
and received a cool welcome from the police. A draft 11-point
`ethics statement' for all police officers, issued for
consultation by the police ethics working party (of senior
officers and Home Office officials) in December, was dismissed
by Alan Eastwood, chair of the Police Federation, as
`unnecessary'. When, later in the month, Home Secretary Kenneth
Clarke announced proposals for faster police disciplinary
proceedings, and for the dismissal of incompetent officers,
Eastwood said there was no need for new procedures, and accused
Clarke of creating a distorted picture of a force `beset by lazy
and unsackable officers'. And a dramatic drop in the numbers of
arrests in London was attributed to police `losing heart' by Mike
Bennett, the Police Federation Metropolitan branch chair. `You're
now getting the police service you deserve', he said. `Officers
are fed up with not being believed in court, fed up with the
bureaucracy, fed up with all the changes' (Guardian 12, 17,
19.12.92).
Elsewhere, ACPO Crime Secretary John Hoddinott, Chief Constable
of Hampshire, complained that too much material was being
disclosed to the defence. He called for new guidelines to limit
the amount of disclosure required and to protect the identity of
informants. According to police, between 20 and 30 cases are
being dropped every year in order to prevent disclosure of
informants' details.
Police disclosure of a different kind was under attack in the
High Court, as Mr Justice Popplewell ordered the police to stop
`emasculating and frustrating' the police complaints procedure
by using evidence obtained from the complainant to defend civil
actions. He said that complainants were `naturally and rightly
unwilling' to make statements which could be used against them
later. The police said that his ruling would be impossible to
implement, and indicated that they would appeal. The case arose
from a civil action brought by Kevin Wiley, who sued the police
after being acquitted of an armed robbery charge brought in 1987
by the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad ( Guardian, Independent
23.12.92, Independent on Sunday 27.12.92).