Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580-599)
MR ROBERT
ROOKS, BRIGADIER
COLIN FINDLAY,
GROUP CAPTAIN
EDWARD SCAPLEHORN
AND COMMANDER
DAVID PRICE
1 MARCH 2006
Q580 Vera Baird: There
is a gap there, actually, is there not, which is getting wider
the further we go along? The duty to call in the police by a Commanding
Officer is to call in yourselves and then to call on the civilian
police, and the reasons why he must call you are confined to Schedule
2 offences and these particularly sensitive ones. There is a whole
range of offences so it is quite possible to just miss off this
duty to inform the police, on that structure. It is quite inadequate.
Do you agree?
Brigadier Findlay: I could but
say that when we are made aware of these circumstances it will
go from us to the civil authority, because, again, we are very
conscious where the boundaries of our responsibilities lie, and
indeed, our power and authority does not extend over civilians
in the United Kingdom.
Q581 Vera Baird: You could
liken it to being an epidemic in domestic violence (I do not want
to overstate it but it is a very serious and very widespread issue)
but it is not on Schedule 2 at all, although the level of offending
may be minor in terms of assault. So there is no duty to call
you either, let alone the civilian police who have the power and
responsibility. I am not just thinking of domestic violence, I
am also, actually, thinking of sexual harassment, too, and I suspect
that there will be a range of other offences that we would be
very anxious should be investigated by the police in the military
which are going to fall through this loophole if we do not tighten
up the duty—
Brigadier Findlay: And that would
be very appropriate for the use of Section 114, the prescribed
circumstances, which is variable and allows for that variation
to be included.
Q582 Robert Key: The heads
of the three prosecuting authorities described to us their working
relationship with the three respective Service police forces.
Would each of you welcome closer involvement with the prosecuting
authorities?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: Perhaps
I could start because we have a very close relationship with our
prosecuting authority. The RAF Police, for four, possibly, five
years now have had a legal officer embedded within our SIB headquarters.
That was originally put there as a way of improving the quality
of our investigative output. However, about a year ago, really,
I think, in line with emerging legislation, the RAF prosecuting
authority and I agreed that that officer could (whether warranted
or whatever) become a member of the RAF prosecuting authority.
So I actually have a member of the RAF prosecuting authority in
my headquarters (I nearly said "on my staff") but he
does not work for me, he works in my headquarters where he provides
a central point of advice to the RAF Police—SIB, in particular.
We have found that wholly beneficial. I think my colleagues have
similar stories to tell.
Commander Price: From an RN perspective,
we have had a Service policeman within the Naval prosecuting authority
for something like the last 10 to 12 years, and it has currently
come into practice that the Naval prosecuting authority, Captain
Davis (who I know you have heard evidence from), has developed
a policy whereby Service police will get legal advice purely from
the prosecuting authority, and in the first instance this practice
that is coming into place will work with the SIB and will then
cascade through to those on general police duties, so that will
form a close working relationship ahead of the Bill.
Brigadier Findlay: We already
have a close association by placement of Royal Military Police
SIB warrant officers inside APA (the Army Prosecuting Authority)
in Uxbridge and in Germany, and we have recently achieved agreement
with the APA that their prosecuting officers will deploy with
us on future operations to provide intimate advisory support and
guidance in the preparation of the initial stages of investigations.
Indeed, equally, that we can call them out to the scene of an
incident in the United Kingdom or Germany. I welcome this. The
closest possible linkage is to be encouraged.
Q583 Robert Key: Do you
think the Director of Service Prosecutions should have a Service
background?
Mr Rooks: I think the key point
here is that it should be the right person for the job, the best
person for the job, and to do the job effectively the department's
view is that a Service background is extremely important because
it enables the Director of Service Prosecutions to understand
the environment which is being described and it, also, I think,
gives confidence to the servicemen themselves that the Director
of Service Prosecutions would understand what they have to face
in an operational situation in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Q584 Robert Key: Now that
we have got a Tri-Service Bill to become an Act, has the time
come to have a Tri-Service police force and a Tri-Service SIB?
Would that be logical?
Mr Rooks: We tend to concentrate
in these discussions on investigations. The Service police forces
have a much wider role to play in supporting operations. I think
it is fair to say that that role is quite different between the
three Services. The role of a Service policeman, say, on sailing
investigations on a ship is rather different from one in a land
environment and, again, is rather different from one in the RAF
area. It is also true that most servicemen still serve in a single-service
environment for the majority of their career. On investigations,
closer working, I think, is clearly important and we are working
to have ever closer relationships between the various SIB elements,
and to that end Group Captain Scaplehorn has, I think it is, four
people (it may be six) deployed to Iraq actually working directly
with the Army SIB. They rotate, so inter-Service exchange of views
and ideas is working very well there. Also, training has now been
made joint. All the Level 2 training, basic learning to be a policeman,
is done together at one location, Southwick Park near the South
coast, and Level 3, even more important, which is training to
deal with the difficult, high-level investigations, is done completely
jointly in mixed groups, again in a single location at Southwick
Park. So a great deal of work is going on in gradually bringing
the SIB together, but there are no plans at present to merge them.
Q585 Chairman: The argument
you use about the context of crime on board a ship compared to
some other setting, the same applies to the civil police; they
have to deal with street crime disorder, fraud investigations—all
of which are in an entirely different context with totally different
kinds of people. Does not the same principle apply there as well?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: Could
I perhaps add some colour to that? I do not think that is, perhaps,
the point that Robert was intending to make. The Service police
themselves have a different range of outputs. The Royal Air Force
Police, for example, for which I can speak, encompasses both the
policing, the law enforcement capability for the Royal Air Force
but, equally, we provide a counter-intelligence and security function
for the Royal Air Force. So that, in that sense, it is simply
not possible to compare the whole of the RAF Police, for example,
with the whole of the Royal Military Police and say it is the
same, because it clearly is not.
Brigadier Findlay: The piece where
the real commonality exists is in the investigation. That is,
if you like, the centre of the three overlapping Venn diagrams.
That is the bit that goes together because the law is the law,
as you quite rightly say. However, we do have several very different
roles and functions. For example, the Royal Military Police on
operations is responsible for road movement and traffic control.
That is where the bulk of my manpower is deployed in operational
theatres. We have striven to achieve maximum integration and mutual
aid in those specific areas where there is immediacy of overlap
and commonality of skills and experience. That is in investigations.
We are achieving a great deal with that. The main development
in the last few months has been the establishment now of the Service
Police Crime Bureau at the Defence Police College down at Southwick
Park in Portsmouth (it used to be HMS Dryad) where we have brought
together all of our data management, our forensic support capabilities
and our technical ability to make assessment and to provide for
the civil police a single, plug-and-play, point of contact for
all of the criminal records associated with the three Services.
Q586 Robert Key: That
is very helpful. I have always wondered what happened to Dryad—now
you have answered that as well! Mr Rooks, we have not got your
complete job description here and so I wondered if you could just
tell us, as Director General of Security and Safety, does that
mean you have any relationship with the Ministry of Defence Police?
Mr Rooks: Yes, indeed.
Q587 Robert Key: So, can
I ask, then, why it is that there has still not been put in place
what was promised under Section 27(3) of the Police Reform Act
2002, about the relationship with the Independent Police Complaints
Commission? This is an on-going sore, and I understand that the
IPCC has now said that the Ministry of Defence Police are negotiating
with the Home Office so that the agreement, which was the 2004
IPCC (Forces Maintained Otherwise than by Police Authorities)
Order, should apply to MDP officers only, not to civilians working
for police forces or Military Service Police. What has gone wrong
here? Why has this agreement not been put in place?
Mr Rooks: The agreement has not
been put in place because of difficulties over the status of the
civilians concerned. In a home department police force the civilians
without doubt work for the Chief Constable. In the Ministry of
Defence civilians may be posted from time to time to work in the
Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency, so they are simply
doing ordinary, Civil Service jobs. Many of them have nothing
to do with the MDP at all; their whole job may be to support the
guard service because although they have merged into one agency
they do split out rather into two arms. This is an unsatisfactory
situation which we are addressing with urgency and I hope, with
the Chief Constables to actually go and see the IPCC, to try to
resolve this issue finally in the near future.
Robert Key: I certainly hope so, Mr Rooks,
because in the Government's response to the First Report of the
Defence Committee of December 2001, the Government said, in February
2002, that they promised such measures would be contained in the
Police Reform Act 2002, and they were not.
Q588 Chairman: If I could
just add to that, you did mention, a moment ago, proceeding with
some urgency, but I think the timescales that have been described
do not seem to be very urgent to me.
Mr Rooks: We had thought that
the matter was essentially resolved, and it turned out not to
be, so we need to now return to it with a degree of vigour. What
I think we would like to see is, possibly, civilians in direct
support of police be included to be an analogue with the home
department police forces. The difficulty is double jeopardy. The
civilians are already subject to a disciplinary process by virtue
of being civil servants, and the concern of the unions and some
others is that if they also are subject to the IPCC that is putting
different terms and conditions on them than they actually signed
up with.
Q589 Robert Key: Mr Rooks,
if I may say so, a lot of soldiers in Iraq feel they are under
double jeopardy too, and I do urge you to address this with some
urgency. The Defence Committee has also been approached on this
issue, and so the Ministry can expect some pressure from the Defence
Committee as well. Could I also turn to another matter, which
I find very difficult to understand? I assume your responsibility
also, therefore, extends to the Gibraltar Services police, which
are legally speaking a police force of the Ministry of Defence.
Why is it that relations have broken down with the Gibraltar Police
Staff Association to the extent that I have been approached, on
10 February, by the Chairman asking for assistance because there
are outstanding disputes over many years, there appears to be
a standoff and this is having a very bad impact not only on the
140 or so members of the Gibraltar Services police but, also,
on relations between them and Ministry of Defence employees in
Gibraltar. What has gone wrong?
Mr Rooks: I am afraid I cannot
answer that question at the moment because I am unsighted on it.
My responsibilities have only, so far, involved me with the United
Kingdom police. The Gibraltar police are dealt with locally but
I will very happily take an action from this Committee to investigate
that and, if you wish, provide a written note, but I am afraid
I cannot answer now.
Robert Key: I would be very grateful.
Q590 Chairman: I think
it is important. I think, strictly, this could well be without
the scope of what we are really doing here. However, since it
has been raised and it may have some bearing on how we deal with
the relevant issues when we move into a Standing Committee, it
would be helpful if you could—
Mr Rooks: I would be happy to
do that.
Q591 Robert Key: Mr Chairman,
I will write to Ministers with the submission I have received
from the Gibraltar Services Police Staff Association, so Mr Rooks
will know what we are talking about.
Mr Rooks: Thank you.
Mr Howarth: Chairman, may I just say
that, like Mr Key, I, too, have had representations from the Gibraltar
police.
Q592 Vera Baird: Can we
turn to Boards of Inquiry? Do you collect and supply, as it were,
the evidence for Boards of Inquiry currently—and you will,
I guess, continue to do so under the harmonised Service Inquiry
system in the Bill? What is your role there?
Mr Rooks: The Service police generally,
if I can speak for all three to start with, are not tasked to
investigate that on behalf of a Board of Inquiry, but evidence
which they may have collected for other purposes can be used in
a Board of Inquiry and indeed Service police can be called to
a Board of Inquiry to give oral evidence, but they are not actually
tasked by the Board of Inquiry to produce an investigation report
as such.
Q593 Vera Baird: How,
classically, is evidence for a Board of Inquiry collected if there
is not a criminal implication so that you are not engaged? Who
does it?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: The
Board does it.
Mr Rooks: The Board does it itself
by calling witnesses.
Q594 Vera Baird: What
about the significance of on-the-ground forensic material? Forensics
are slightly out of place, I accept, but if it is relevant to
the Inquiry, which must be the case in most situations, there
is a need to collect evidence.
Commander Price: What you have
got is concurrent action here. You have got a police inquiry and
a Board of Inquiry, potentially, running at the same time, and
both are complementary.
Q595 Vera Baird: You may
not have a police inquiry. I think Mr Rooks has just made it clear
that there may be a situation where the police are not involved
because there is no criminal implication. Do you know who, then,
collects the evidence on the ground? You say the Board of Inquiry,
but what does that mean?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: I think
it would depend on the circumstances. If a Board of Inquiry, for
example, is being held to determine why an aircraft engine has
failed and damage has been caused, and so on, then the on-the-ground
examination will be done by competent engineering staff who will
go along and dismantle it and do all the things you would expect.
Q596 Vera Baird: Who tells
them to?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: The
Board of Inquiry tells them to.
Q597 Vera Baird: When
is it convened?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: It would
be convened on order following an incident. Certainly in the case
I gave you, if damage is caused, let us say, to an aircraft engine,
which has financial significance, then a Board may be convened,
and the Convening Order will tell the Chairman of the Board what
he or she is supposed to investigate.
Q598 Chairman: At what
level will that decision be made?
Group Captain Scaplehorn: I am
afraid I am getting beyond my level.
Q599 Vera Baird: How is
it you have got—as you have made very clear—well-set-out
procedures and protocols to ensure that a crime scene is preserved
and is investigated in the correct way? You cannot set up a Board
of Inquiry in advance of an incident to ensure that investigation
by an engineer, or whatever, is done. What protocols are there
for that kind of situation, because I can imagine evidence very
easily being lost at an early stage—granted this is outside
your remit?
Brigadier Findlay: These are generic
Service policy issues, far wider than merely criminal issues,
that the Service police deal with. To reflect on Commander Price's
point, very often—certainly in really serious case work,
particularly where there has been loss of life—there is
potentially criminal liability and, therefore, the actions which
you are seeking are likely to be on-going by the Service police
which then subsequently can be drawn as evidence before a Board
of Inquiry. So there is a great deal of concurrency, and in those
serious incidents where we are involved I would seek to reassure
you that the gathering of evidence for criminal purposes will
be of assistance to a Board of Inquiry later.
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