You have a voice
No one should be made to feel dismissed, uncomfortable, or unsafe by the police - you have the right to speak up and have your voice heard.
On this page you'll find more information about how you can make a complaint about the police, what you can complain about, and what action might be taken as a result of your complaint.
Who we are
We’re the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the police complaints watchdog which oversees the police complaints system. We are not the police – we’re completely independent of them.
We make sure the police investigate complaints about themselves properly. We use evidence from our work to help make policing better.
We understand that people are worried about violence against women and girls, and how the police deal with it. We want you to know about the police complaints system and how to make a complaint if you need to.
Find out more about us. Read more about why we are running this awareness campaign.
You have a voice campaign
Examples of what you can complain about include:
- You reported something to the police and you were unhappy with what they did or didn’t do.
- Your partner, ex-partner, or family member works or worked for the police and they were abusive to you. Abusive could mean physically, sexually, emotionally, or financially.
- You were in contact with the police, and they did something inappropriate, like adding you on social media, calling or texting you, visiting you, giving gifts, asking you to keep things secret, flirting, touching you, or being sexual.
Further guidance
If you feel ready to make a complaint, you can do it in the way that works for you:
- Fill in our online complaint form.
- Call and ask us for a paper form or download and print one yourself (in Word or PDF format). Complete it and post or email it back to us.
- If you feel comfortable, you can complain directly to the police service involved. Most police services give you options to complain in different ways, like online, email, letter, calling 101, in person, or through someone acting on your behalf.
- If you need, someone you trust can help you complain.
- If you need help making your complaint, or you want further advice, you can contact us on: 0300 020 0096
Learn more about the different ways to contact us.
If you are supporting someone to make a complaint, you can download our advocates information pack. Your can also read more about why we are running our 'You have a voice' campaign.
When you complain, the police service you complained about will look into it first. This is so they have a chance to put things right. They should always log your complaint, and you can ask for it to be formally recorded.
Police services have special departments whose job it is to handle complaints, usually called Professional Standards departments. Most complaints that go to police are sent to these teams.
They should also ask you what you would like to happen, because your voice matters. The police service must tell you what they did and what the outcome is.
There are some cases the police have to send to us, so we can make a decision on whether the IOPC will do an investigation independently of the police. We call this a referral.
There is a list of things the police have to refer, for example if someone dies or is seriously injured, but the police can still refer something outside this list if they think we need to look at it. We can also ask the police to refer something to us if we think we need to assess it.
When we receive a referral, we assess it to consider whether an investigation is necessary. No two referrals are exactly the same. All referrals are assessed on their own merit by our specialist assessment unit.
If we decide it is not necessary to investigate the matter we may send it back to the police force to handle in a reasonable and proportionate manner.
If we decide that it is necessary to investigate, there are three forms of investigation we can choose from:
- Local investigation: the police force's own professional standards department investigates. This is a separate department within the police force that is responsible for complaints and misconduct, counter corruption, vetting and governance
- Independent investigation: we investigate using our own investigators
- Directed investigation: we direct and control the investigation using police resources
Complaints can have different outcomes:
- A member of the police could be given training to do their job better.
- They could be disciplined at work. This could be anything from a warning, through to losing their job and being stopped from ever working for the police again.
- They could face criminal charges. If found guilty, they face the same punishments anyone else might get.
- We also make recommendations to police services to help them learn from what happened and make things better in future.
Find out more information about investigations and complaint outcomes.
If you’re unhappy with the outcome of your complaint or how it was handled, you may be able to ask to have it reviewed. The police service should explain this when they tell you about the outcome. A different organisation, like us, may be able to look at it to see what they did, how they did it, and whether they got it right.
Find out more about reviews and appeals.
Improving policing
Our learning recommendations can help to prevent the same incidents from happening again. They can result in changes to training, guidance and processes. Find out more about learning.
Resources for organisations
We have a range of dedicated products available to organisations and advocates who support women and girls which can be downloaded using the links below.
The products include:
- An advocates information pack for professionals to help them advocate for and support women and girls in navigating the police complaints process.
- Posters and leaflets with information about our campaign and how to make a complaint.
- A fold-able business card containing helpful information, which is disguised with a neutral false cover. This has been designed specifically for women and girls who are vulnerable to abuse.