POLICE officers under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct are treated differently \u201cto every other class of person\u201d, Essex Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
Chairman Steve Taylor was talking after the Home Secretary announced the possibility that deadlines could be introduced to IOPC investigations for the first time.<\/p>\n
Priti Patel told the Police Superintendents\u2019 Association Annual Conference in September that she wanted to fix the \u201cinjustice\u201d of lengthy investigations into the country\u2019s cops, which leaves their personal and professional lives in \u201climbo\u201d.<\/p>\n
Steve said: \u201cPolice officers under investigation are being treated differently to almost every other class of person. That simply isn\u2019t right and it\u2019s not fair. Officers are being held to account whilst they\u2019re investigated for inordinate amounts of time, which is unfair. This is eroding the confidence that officers out there on the ground have in the very people charged to investigate them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not just the officer being investigated that\u2019s touched by these investigations; It\u2019s their shift mates, their family members at home. It\u2019s the uncertainty of knowing that in the more serious cases, jobs and mortgages, homes and family life, are all hanging in the balance. And in the worst of cases they\u2019re in the balance for years, and it\u2019s simply not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Home Secretary said she was in contact with IOPC Director General Michael Lockwood on the matter.<\/p>\n
Steve added: \u201cFor too long the way officers have been investigated by an apparently independent system and process has been unfair. Natural justice, amongst other things, is not best served by that, in my view.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years we\u2019ve been saying that changes are required in this area. The noises that we\u2019ve been hearing from the new Home Secretary are really encouraging. Even the fact that we\u2019re having this conversation and hearing positive things from people in positions of power, is a good thing and we\u2019re moving in the right direction. We must hope that this thrust survives beyond the likely General Election.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POLICE officers under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct are treated differently \u201cto every other class of person\u201d, Essex Police Federation has said. Chairman Steve Taylor was talking\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214,"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\/81422"}],"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=81422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81623,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81422\/revisions\/81623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}