Complaints made against a senior Lancashire police officer by two retired senior police officers - Lancashire Police, June 2017
In June 2017, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) began an independent investigation into the conduct of a senior Lancashire police officer following complaints made in relation to a misconduct investigation they led.
The complainants, two retired senior police officers and subjects of the investigation, raised a number of complaints relating to the way the investigation had been conducted in 2015.
The former officers believed amongst other matters that the Lancashire police officer failed to adhere to national police guidelines and this resulted in a flawed investigation.
Our investigation concluded in December 2021 and we published our findings in relation to matters specifically investigated by ourselves. Any outstanding matters have been referred back to Lancashire for local resolution.
After careful consideration of the evidence, we found no indication the officer had acted in a way that may have breached the police standards of professional behaviour or committed a criminal offence.
We upheld two complaints where the officer’s conduct was not under investigation. These related to mistakenly referring to a witness as a ‘subject’ in a report, which also included their personal details.
We considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.
We found both individual and organisational learning related to maintaining policy books, and individual learning regarding the compilation of the investigator’s report. Lancashire police accepted our recommendations to address the issues identified.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that Lancashire Police should ensure all policy decisions and rationales should be documented appropriately during the course of its investigations to record strategic decisions, operational priorities, and strategic, critical and investigative issues.
This follows an independent IOPC investigation into a Misconduct Investigation carried out by Lancashire Police in 2015. Our investigation found that no-one involved in the 2015 Investigation kept a designated policy file. Policy files should mainly be used to record strategic policy decisions, operational priorities, and strategic, critical and investigative issues. The lack of any policy file has meant that the IOPC investigation was unable to consider the full contemporaneous rationale around the decision making that went on during the misconduct investigation.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
Lancashire Constabulary accepts this recommendation.
The organisational learning for this case was presented to the Constabulary’s Organisational Learning Board which was chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable on Tuesday 13th September 2022.
Work required to ensure effective implementation of this recommendation has already begun and is being tracked using the Constabulary’s Organisational Learning Tracker. Progress will be monitored through the Organisational Learning Board.
The learning from your IOPC report has been captured on our Lancashire Police Corporate Development Tracker and progress is monitored as part of our Organisational Learning Board.
Further, to date, conversations have taken place with the Training Department within Lancashire Constabulary. This department is responsible for delivering investigative training. This includes ISMPC and SIO training.
The use of Policy books is interwoven through the ISMPC and SIO course. The guidance is that policy books should be used wherever a MIR (major incident room) is set up. It is recommended as ‘best practice’ however their use is not mandated.