THE Independent Office for Police Conduct is taking too long to resolve cases, leaving officers \u2018toiling under the yolk\u2019 of investigations.<\/p>\n
Steve Taylor, Essex Police Federation Chairman has called the average 233 working days it takes to resolve cases \u2018disgusting\u2019 and said it can be a key contributing factor to officers taking time off sick with stress \u2013 just when frontline policing is being stretched like never before.<\/p>\n
He says suspects in criminal cases are treated better than officers under IOPC review.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a disgustingly long period of time and let\u2019s not forget that\u2019s an average figure, we\u2019ve got officers still waiting for an outcome after three years of IOPC investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact it can have on members cannot be underestimated \u2013 we have officers going off with stress, officers not available to work simply because they are toiling under the yolk of needlessly long investigations at the hands of the IOPC.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t treat criminal suspects they same way we treat witnesses or officers under investigation by that internal process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very strict rules on bail which were brought in because it was deemed that some suspects were too long on bail whilst under investigation, it\u2019s no different to someone being on bail to professionally an officer being under investigation by the IOPC, it simply shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when officers complain to the IOPC the person who investigates that complaint is from the IOPC \u2013 it\u2019s ludicrous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve says red tape is to blame for the delays at the IOPC and thinks the actual investigations, the hard work behind each case often take up a fraction of the time it currently takes to get them resolved.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s calling on the organisation\u2019s new Director General, Michael Lockwood, who took up the reins earlier this year, to shake things up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not acceptable that the IOPC can take so long without any recourse. There\u2019s very little meaningful oversight – I\u2019ve heard Mr Lockwood talk about some of the legacy issues he\u2019s inherited, one of those is the timelines involved in investigations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incumbent on him and his new regime to do something about it, because it\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Independent Office for Police Conduct is taking too long to resolve cases, leaving officers \u2018toiling under the yolk\u2019 of investigations. Steve Taylor, Essex Police Federation Chairman has called the\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4671,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions\/4671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}