Road traffic collision - Metropolitan Police Service, November 2017
In the early hours of the morning on 15 November 2017 a Metropolitan Police Service officer saw a driver contravening a red light and driving in excess of the speed limit in east London. The officer drove behind the driver, observing him contravene a further two red lights and continue to drive over the speed limit, until the driver collided with another car. Both drivers suffered injuries.
Our investigators spoke with witnesses, viewed and analysed CCTV footage, obtained a report detailing the manner of the police officer’s driving, and obtained an account from the police officer.
The investigation concluded there was no indication the officer had behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence, or caused or contributed to the injuries to the two drivers.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The Metropolitan Police Service to use their best endeavours to upgrade their IT systems as soon as possible to ensure that, when airwaves are provided to the IOPC, they are time stamped so it is clear when the transmissions were made. Currently, when the IOPC receive airwaves they are not time stamped. This makes it difficult to establish a timeline, and means there is no evidence to show when particular information has been provided and/or received by officers.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
The MPS currently has a program of work underway to deliver ‘Trunk Side Recording’ (recording starting at a point of connection to the MPS rather than when the operator picks up the call). This program includes the deployment of a new version of the current NICE software used to manage call recording. This contains a number of updated features which will allow the meta data (timestamp and other information) held within the call to be transferred with the recording (the exact business process is still to be agreed following testing).
The solution was due to be implemented by the end of July 2019 but due to operational and technical issues the delivery is now estimated to be deployed in October 2019. However, this has not been confirmed at this time and discussions are ongoing.
The project is managed by Digital Policing, Head of Networks and is being delivered to Met Command and Control (MetCC) as the customer. MetCC has a significant level of input in terms of subject matter and business experts from within the Business Operations. This is being led by MetCC OCU Commander Chief Superintendent.
The Head of Support for MetCC will monitor the impact of the changes relating to time stamping through key performance meetings ensuring that requests for time stamping by the IOPC are dealt with accordingly.