The IPCC was set up four years ago this month to replace a discredited Police
Complaints Authority. %26ldquo;Investigation of police officers by their own or
another police service is widely regarded as unjust and does not inspire
public confidence,%26rdquo; Sir William Macpherson wrote in his inquiry into the
killing of Stephen Lawrence.
The IPCC has been under fire since the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at
Stockwell Tube station in July 2005. Criticism intensified this year when
more than 100 members of the Police Action Lawyers Group (PALG) withdrew
their backing and two representative members, Tony Murphy and Raju Bhatt,
resigned from its advisory board. Murphy, of the London law firm Bhatt
Murphy, argues that proper investigation of complaints against the police
has %26ldquo;long been held as essential to our democracy. The leadership is failing
to fulfil its responsibilities. Urgent action is needed if the IPCC is not
to become another obstacle on the road to police accountability.%26rdquo;
Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC, denies that the group is facing a crisis
of confidence. He insists that it is business as usual and the group
continues to deal with PALG members %26ldquo;on a day-to-day basis without any
problems. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we do not,%26rdquo; he says. But a new
report by the Legal Action Group in Legal Action this month shows that the
PALGs concerns are widely endorsed by lawyers, campaigners and families.
Helen Shaw, of Inquest, the pressure group that campaigns to provide legal
representation at inquests over deaths in custody, also on the IPCC advisory
board, shares %26ldquo;frustrations in trying to get the IPCC to listen to concerns
from bereaved families over the quality of investigations and the way that
the IPCC has approached families. Our experience has been until very
recently that the IPCC has paid lip service to what weve been saying,%26rdquo; she
says.
The first test came with the Jean Charles de Menezes killing. The decision by
the IPCC (announced last December 21) not to recommend disciplinary action
against four senior officers was described by his cousin Vivian Figuierdo as
a scandal.
What, in the familys view, did the IPCC do wrong? Yasmin Khan, a spokeswoman
for the family, starts with its %26ldquo;reluctance or inability to stand up%26rdquo; to Sir
Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Khan also raises %26ldquo;the
failure to correct misinformation%26rdquo; in the press that led to a leak by IPCC
staff in August 2005 revealing that de Menezes did not have a bulky jacket
or a bag and that he did not run. Khan says: %26ldquo;Had that leak not been made
public, we would presumably not known until over two years after the
shooting that Jean did nothing wrong . . . It seems that the IPCC is just as
capable of carrying out a whitewash as the discredited PCA.%26rdquo;
What happened to Richard Chapman on that autumn day in 2004 is unclear other
than he lost consciousness, suffered cardiac arrest in the cell and was
pronounced dead in hospital three days later. A police investigation
reported in September 2005, deciding not to refer the case to the Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS). %26ldquo;We were shocked. Richard had only gone out for a
walk and he ended up dead in police custody,%26rdquo; says Sue. %26ldquo;Hed never been in
trouble, was happily married with three children and ran a successful
business. We couldnt understand what had happened.%26rdquo;
The family instructed Stefano Ruis, at Fisher Meredith, the South London law
firm, who claims to have encountered resistance from the IPCC from the
start. %26ldquo;Rather than simply referring the matter to the CPS in accordance
with its own protocol, I was told that it would take counsels advice,%26rdquo; he
says, adding that a reference was %26ldquo;inevitably%26rdquo; made but only after a years
delay. The case was with the CPS for a year before it decided not to
prosecute.
There was an inquest last October that recorded a narrative verdict that death
was caused by pneumonia after a heart attack. One police officer received
%26ldquo;words of advice%26rdquo; as a result of the IPCC investigation; otherwise no action
was taken. %26ldquo;How such a decision is supposed to give us confidence in the
IPCCs role in ensuring accountability and its claimed independence
completely escapes me,%26rdquo; Ruis says.
The family believes that there was a serious and tragic breakdown in the care
at the police station for a man otherwise fit, healthy and content %26mdash; with no
criminal record, no history of drink, drug or mental health problems %26mdash; to
end up dead.
The IPCC says not. Chapman drank a maximum four pints (the family say three),
nowhere near enough to render a man of his size drunk. %26ldquo;To find that if an
officer responsible for ensuring the welfare of those in his custody
completely failed to carry out a risk assessment, failed to contact a doctor
with sufficient urgency and failed to carry out constant observation %26mdash; to
simply decide that the case is only worthy of %26lsquo;words of advice where an
innocent man lost his life is utterly inadequate,%26rdquo; Ruis says. %26ldquo;It amounts to
a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the IPCC.%26rdquo;
The author is director of communications and campaigns at the Legal Action
Group IPCC FACTS AND FIGURES
* The Independent Police Complaints Commission is run by a chairman, a deputy
and 13 commissioners who, under statute, must not have served in the police
force.
* Its investigators must handle the most serious complaints autonomously and
have the same powers as police to make arrests and seize documents.
* Not only was the body conceived as constitutionally independent but it would
be run by independently minded people such as Nick Hardwick, the chairman
and former chief executive of the Refugee Council, and John Wadham, a former
director of Liberty, as deputy (now with the Equality and Human Rights
Commission).
* Hardwick says that press reports suggesting that the commission is facing a
crisis of confidence %26ldquo;[do] not reflect reality%26rdquo;.
* A survey of 4,000 adults published last week found that most people (88 per
cent) who knew of the watchdog believed that %26ldquo;they would be treated fairly
if they personally complained%26rdquo; and more than two thirds (67 per cent) were
confident that it handled complaints against police in an impartial way. Not
quite two thirds (64 per cent) had heard of the watchdog and more than one
quarter (26 per cent) wrongly believed it was part of the police.
* It is pleasing that two in three people know who we are, increasingly
understand we are not part of the Police Service and feel that their
complaints would be handled impartially,%26rdquo; Hardwick said.
