Police complaints procedure

[Andy008]

If somebody makes a formal complaint to the police regarding their treatment whilst in custody, or that they were wrongfully arrested in the first place, their first recommended port of call is I believe a duty inspector. Pending investigations, what would be the motivation for this officer to find fault with his subordinates?

To put this into context, in a private sector organisation, a manager receiving a complaint regarding bad service received by a customer may (in an ideal world) do everything necessary to appease that customer so as to avoid losing their future repeat business.

Yet an officer investigating their colleagues alleged misbehaviour runs the risk of finding them at fault...yet they have no financial risk, instead they risk making working relationships with their colleagues very difficult perhaps even untenable? (should they indeed be at fault)

[Yorkie580]

The Duty Inspector doesn't generally carry out an investigation unless it's a low-level complaint, ie rudeness, unhappy with service provided as opposed to assault, racial abuse, falsification of evidence. An Inspector is generally the person in charge of a shift so is the person that takes details of the complaint.

If it's an allegation of criminal behaviour it would be passed to the internal investigations departments and/or the IPCC depending on the nature of it.

Allegations of wrongful arrest would be dealt with at court becasue of the legal arguments involved (there's often a misconception that if somebody isn't charged, or if it's decided that charges won't be brought, then the original arrest was unlawful - this usually isn't the case because the grounds needed to arrest (ie start an investigation) are - by necessity - much lower than those needed to charge.) Treatment in custody... it would depend on the type of complaint. If the complaint was about the temperature of food then it would usually be dealt with locally (although some lawyers would happily argue for hours about whether the fact a sausage was warm rather than hot might have affected their client's judgement). If it was to do with neglect of duty, depriving people access to legal advice etc it would be dealt with at a higher level or at court during a trial or claims court.

Any compliant that is received is monitored centrally and not just dealt with by the Inspector. A compliant can also be made via a solicitor or the Citizen's Advice Bureau etc. Also you don't have to complain to the police station you are unhappy about.

There are hundreds of complaints received and they do get looked at. Fortunately there's CCTV in most custody suites now so most complaints about custody get resolved very quickly.

There are always cases where the procedures aren't used correctly, but that happens in every organisation unfortunately.