Complaints regarding police response to reports of harassment - West Yorkshire Police, December 2018
On 19 December 2018, a former Member of Parliament (MP) made a complaint against West Yorkshire Police (WYP) regarding its alleged failure to investigate reports of harassment they made during 2017 and 2018. The former MP stated WYP’s alleged failure to investigate these reports resulted in continued harassment, which caused them, and their staff, to fear for their personal safety. The former MP also made three separate reports to WYP in relation to swastikas being left at their constituency office. The former MP alleged WYP failed to effectively investigate these reports. Finally, the former MP alleged that WYP failed to support them, as a victim, and failed to keep them regularly updated in relation to the progress of its investigations.
During our investigation, the Investigator obtained a volume of documentary evidence including occurrence details logs, incident logs and email correspondence. The investigator also obtained detailed accounts from the officers who were involved in progressing the former MP’s reports, specifically in relation to their decisions and actions. The Investigator compared the actions of WYP with the relevant policies and procedures.
Although the former MP initially engaged with the investigation, they ceased to respond to the Investigator’s requests for information. The Investigator therefore concluded the investigation based on the evidence available to them.
In relation to the former MP’s report in 2018, the evidence indicated WYP appropriately assessed the occurrence type as nuisance telephone calls/texts/emails. Officers carefully considered the context in which some social media posts were written and assessed they were not a threat. We were of the view this was a reasonable conclusion to have reached, based on the information available. Evidence also showed that officers demonstrated a good grasp of the force’s Stalking and Harassment Policy. Regarding a second report made in 2018, a member of the public was served with a harassment notice as they continued to post comments regarding the former MP after being warned of the negative impact their comments had on them. We assessed this action was also in keeping with the force’s policy. We found no evidence to support the former MP’s allegation that WYP failed to complete a timely and effective investigation into their reports and did not uphold that complaint.
In our opinion, there was a volume of documentary evidence to indicate that WYP progressed all three investigations into reports of swastikas being left outside the former MP’s constituency office, and this within a responsible and appropriate timeframe. This took into account the apparent difficulties the force experienced in identifying the suspect. We did not uphold this complaint.
We also investigated the complaint that WYP failed to fulfil its obligations under the Victims’ Code when interacting with the former MP. In our opinion, the evidence indicated WYP did contact the complainant regularly to update them or their staff on the progress of their investigations. According to the information recorded on WYP systems, the longest period of time which elapsed between updates appeared to be three weeks, with the exception of the last update, which was 12 weeks. Although the Victims’ Code does not specify the frequency of updates to victims, a period of 12 weeks between updates does, in our opinion, appear unreasonable. This is especially in view of the fact that WYP was in possession of information they could have shared with the former MP (the arrest of a suspect). We therefore decided to partially uphold this complaint.
We completed our investigation in December 2019.