Examination of Witnesses (Questions 115-119)
20 OCTOBER 2004
MR IRWIN
MONTGOMERY, MR
TERRY SPENCE,
CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT
WESLEY WILSON
AND MR
RAYMOND PHILLIPS
Q115 Chairman: Gentlemen, welcome. I
am sorry we are delayed and I am afraid we will most likely be
interrupted while democracy takes its course in this rather strange
way, but we will try and get on. Thank you for coming to help
us with our inquiry into the functions of the Office of the Police
Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. Do not feel all of you have to
answer every question, otherwise we will be here all night; it
is perfectly satisfactory to have one on behalf of you all or,
if there is a difference of opinion—which I am sure there
would not be—between the two associations, then perhaps
one from each side. Do not feel all four of you have to answer
each time. You both support the system of independent scrutiny
of complaints against the police, and the Police Ombudsman was
set up to fulfil that role. Perhaps one from each side would summarise
briefly for us what, in your opinion, you consider to be the deficiencies,
if any, of the present arrangements. Shall we start with the Superintendents'
Association?
Chief Superintendent Wilson: Thank
you, chairman.
Q116 Chairman: The first time all of
you speak would you identify yourselves for the shorthand writer
and for the television.
Chief Superintendent Wilson: I
am Wesley Wilson, representing the Superintendents' Association
of Northern Ireland. Mr Chairman, can I just endorse, as you said,
that we do support the need for independent investigation of complaints
against the police because society needs to have confidence in
the workings of the police, and we do back that wholeheartedly.
In this situation we see the stated vision of the Police Ombudsman's
Office is "To strive for excellence in providing an independent
impartial police complaints service in which the public and the
police have confidence" and we feel that has not yet been
achieved, that that excellent service that is required is not
yet there. There are some reasons for that. Sometimes the officers
involved in these investigations that are complained against feel
that the Ombudsman's staff are blinded by a search for evidence
of collusion and corruption, it is almost that they make that
assumption and then try to make the links to prove it rather than
investigating a complaint holistically and finding those things
that prove whether the officer has done anything wrong or not.
So we think that at times that over-zealous approach has led to
inappropriate and unprofessional conduct by some of the Ombudsman's
investigators, and that obviously has an effect on the confidence
of police officers in the system. We believe that everything needs
to be done to increase that confidence that police officers will
have in impartial investigations, and it will be a measure of
the commitment of this striving for excellence of the Ombudsman
what measures are taken to gain that confidence from now on. I
am sure that my colleagues in the Federation would say the same
thing on where they stand really, to help in any way they can
in building that confidence up for the officers concerned, but
it is a thing that needs to be addressed urgently. We feel that
the survey on attitudes on police complaints done by the Ombudsman
was flawed and we have doubts about its methodology, which I hope
you are aware of in that way. What it does show is that there
is a lack of confidence in my police officers in the Ombudsman's
office. We feel there is a lack of oversight of the Ombudsman
and the work of the Ombudsman and the investigators concerned.
We feel that in the past we have brought these to the attention
of both Government and other agencies and feel that that is a
vital point in making sure police officers have confidence in
the system. If police officers have complaints about the way an
investigation is done or how it is dealt with in any way then
there should be an independent person or an officer who can investigate
that. We did write in the past to the Secretary of State back
in 2000 about this—
Q117 Chairman: Sorry, can I be sure I
have that clear: you want an independent investigator to investigate
the independent investigator.
Chief Superintendent Wilson: If
a police officer has a complaint about the way an investigation
has been dealt with, and they make a complaint about that, there
should be an independent person to investigate that, to have oversight
of what the Police Ombudsman was doing. It could be argued that
it is who shall guard the guards type of a situation, but to have
confidence in the investigations that the Ombudsman is doing there
must be an independent person that the police officer can go to
and say "This was not done right; I have not been done right
by". There needs to be some sort of oversight. We did write
back in 2000 to the Minister of State for Northern Ireland at
that time, and the reply given to us was "We propose to arrange
for the Secretary of State to appoint someone to investigate complaints
against the Police Ombudsman on an ad hoc basis". At the
time we accepted that, but it does not seem to have progressed
in the four years since that reply was given, and to appoint someone
on an ad hoc basis we feel is not rigorous enough for police officers
to have confidence in the Police Ombudsman.
Q118 Chairman: Have there been any formal
complaints?
Chief Superintendent Wilson: There
have been formal complaints to the Ombudsman's office. The system
is—and there is a leaflet published by the Ombudsman and
it is on the website—that police officers who are dissatisfied
with the workings of the Ombudsman's Office in any investigation
complain to her first as the Ombudsman and then if not satisfied
they can complain to the Secretary of State. We feel that that
is too ad hoc, there should be a formal system where that is done.
Q119 Chairman: Have there been any complaints
to the Secretary of State?
Chief Superintendent Wilson: There
have been some complaints to the Secretary of State, in fact I
have here an extract from a question posed to Jane Kennedy when
she was the Minister of State for Northern Ireland and the question
was "To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether
he has received complaints from police officers regarding the
actions by officers of the Ombudsman's Office and investigations
carried out by the Police Ombudsman." Jane Kennedy's reply
was: "A number of officers have written to the Northern Ireland
Office regarding the Ombudsman's Office; however, the Police Ombudsman's
Office is operationally independent and the handling of investigations
by the Ombudsman's staff is a matter for the Police Ombudsman's
Office." Again, we feel that the Ombudsman investigating
her own staff is not satisfactory, it is not independent or impartial.
The second question in that same debate was "To ask the Secretary
of State what powers he has to require explanations from the Ombudsman's
Office on the actions of her investigators" and the reply
was by Jane Kennedy: "The Secretary of State has no statutory
powers to require explanations from the Police Ombudsman on the
actions of her officers or the investigations carried out by her
Office". Again, we feel that that is not satisfactory. So
for a police officer to have confidence in this system, we feel
there needs to be independent oversight. We are somewhat gladdened
by the fact that the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice in Northern
Ireland may now look at the processes in the Ombudsman's Office
as part of their inspectorate role, but they cannot look at individual
cases and any maladministration caused in individual cases. We
feel that that does not fully satisfy what we are looking for
in this case. We further think that in these cases the Ombudsman
refuses to accept any wrongdoing by staff; any organisation that
carries out the number of investigations that are involved here
is bound to have some errors, and there needs to be admission
of that because if you admit that you are fallible you show you
are human in dealing with these things and everybody accepts that.
We feel that that is very important, that where inaccuracies are
found, factual inaccuracies are found, that these are acknowledged.
Quite often some of our officers and ex-officers have been shown
draft reports about investigations in which they were under investigation
and they have shown factual inaccuracies. What happens subsequently
is that that report is amended and published as the public document,
but there is no acknowledgement in that report that the police
officer who was under investigation about the complaint has actually
pointed out factual inaccuracies or helped reduce those. Additionally,
officers quite often who are ex-officers are not required by law
to help an investigation and sometimes they feel that they do
not want to do that. There are unhelpful comments in the report
saying the guy who has now retired did not help with the investigation,
but that just paints a sort of bland picture. What happens is
that when ex-officers are dealt with in this way, the serving
police officers do not feel that they have confidence in the system,
it further damages that confidence from them. So we feel that
there should be more acknowledgement in the Ombudsman's reports
about the help given by police officers, whether serving or ex-officers.
There are some cases about the wrongdoing of Police Ombudsman's
investigations, I know there is the Greer and Dougan v PONI
case where the magistrate actually commented on the disingenuous
actions of the investigators, and the Ombudsman's response was
to write to the Lord Chancellor to complain about the magistrate's
comments. There was no formal view of that and no oversight available
for that to be looked at, to see why it happened. Our main thing
in this is we feel that the confidence of the police in the system
is not only a goal that the Ombudsman has admitted, it is an essential
part of it. It is all very well saying public confidence is increased
by the Ombudsman's investigators, we are happy that that is so,
but we feel that there must be more confidence given to police
and that means action by the Ombudsman in that way.
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