UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 828-vi

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

ARMED FORCES BILL COMMITTEE

 

 

ARMED FORCES BILL

 

 

Wednesday 1 March 2006

MR ROBERT ROOKS, BRIGADIER COLIN FINDLAY,

GROUP CAPTAIN EDWARD (TED) SCAPELHORN and COMMANDER DAVID PRICE

Evidence heard in Public Questions 509 - 629

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

1.	This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Armed Forces Bill Committee

on Wednesday 1 March 2006

Members present

Mr George Howarth, in the Chair

Vera Baird

Mr Colin Breed

Mr Simon Burns

Mr David Burrowes

Mr Alan Campbell

Mr Gerald Howarth

Mr Kevan Jones

Robert Key

Sarah McCarthy-Fry

Bob Russell

Jim Sheridan

________________

Witnesses: Mr Robert Rooks, Director General Security and Safety, MoD, Brigadier Colin Findlay, Provost Marshal (Army), Group Captain Edward (Ted) Scapelhorn, Provost Marshal (RAF), and Commander David Price, Provost Marshal (Navy), gave evidence.

Q509 Chairman: Good morning. First of all, thank you for sparing the time to come and talk to us about these important matters impinging on this Bill which you are in one way or another involved in. If you wanted to say any brief words of introduction this is the opportunity to do so otherwise we will plunge straight into questions.

Mr Rooks: I think we are ready to plunge straight into questions, Chairman.

Q510 Mr Howarth: Can you tell us whether you think there is likely to be an increase in the number of incidents that you are going to have to investigate as a result of this Bill? If so, have you assessed the likely impact on your resources? Do you think you have got enough men and kit to do the job?

Mr Rooks: It is not immediately apparent that the Bill itself will cause an increase in workload for the Service Police although there are other factors which might in future. One aspect of the Bill which could cause an increase is the fact that Service Police will now be empowered to investigate anything which is reported to them or comes to their attention from any source rather than having to be asked by the Commanding Officer. I think that that should not necessarily lead to an increase in workload because there really is no evidence at the moment that any incident that needs to be reported and investigated is not so reported and investigated. So what may happen is that the Service Police find out about an incident perhaps a little bit quicker, but even then I doubt it because in practice most incidents are relatively minor. They might occur at night in the barracks after two servicemen have been to the pub and they are having a fight. The first people that would be called would almost certainly be the Service Police. I doubt that people would call the Commanding Officer at two o'clock in the morning. Therefore, the Service Police would respond and they would start by breaking up the fight and they would, at the very least, ask what it was about. They would have already begun an investigation. No doubt they would have reported that to the Commanding Officer very quickly and that investigation would be formally authorised. In practice I see no reason why there should be any more cases than there are now.

Brigadier Findlay: In terms of the Bill, I do not perceive any increase in workload. Where the additional workload comes from and where the pressure comes on to the Army element of the Service Police at the moment with RAF support is in operational theatres and it is our ability to cope with that spike of investigative activity that comes particularly from investigations in Afghanistan and in Iraq that poses us with a challenge. I am quite convinced at the moment that I do need more manpower, but you would expect me perhaps to say that and that is being studied in depth at the moment.

Q511 Mr Howarth: What is your manpower at the present time?

Brigadier Findlay: I have 234 detective specialists in the SIB and that manpower covers investigations in any location around the world where there are UK Army forces based.

Q512 Mr Howarth: Could the other two possibly give us the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy figures?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: The Royal Air Force has 35 detective specialists.

Commander Price: In the Navy there are 11 in the SIB. Overall the size of the Service Police is approximately 280 altogether.

Q513 Mr Howarth: Do you concur with the Brigadier that despite the level of potential enquiries that this Bill might raise you can cope?

Commander Price: From an RN perspective, I believe that we are insufficiently resourced in certain areas. That said, there is currently a review within the Navy looking at how we deal with the independence of investigations and how we are going to meet the requirements of the Bill itself and at the organisation and the setup. This review presents the opportunity to reorganise and to put the appropriate level of resources in place.

Group Captain Scapelhorn: I concur with that. We have certainly felt the strain in the Special Investigations Branch. We are currently reviewing the composition of that and we are putting resource into that from other areas of the RAF Police. It is simply an adjustment of resource.

Q514 Mr Howarth: So you do not think that the requirement now for a Commanding Officer to refer to you any case which is outside his summary powers is going to lead to an increase in workload?

Brigadier Findlay: I do not believe so. Commanding Officers very frequently invite the Service Police to conduct enquiries which they will deal with summarily even at present. In terms of providing best evidence, particularly when something is likely to be dealt with on a criminal basis at summary dealing level, it is wise for them to be utilising Service Police skills to acquire that evidence appropriately at the moment. I do not perceive that that is going to result in an expansion of requirement on the ground where the volume of activity takes place.

Q515 Mr Jones: I heard what you said about resources, which I think is pretty self-evident from recent events. Would you agree with Judge Blackett who said in last week's Sunday Telegraph that it was unacceptable and damaging that inefficiencies within the military meant that soldiers charged with serious crimes sometimes had to wait months or years before appearing at a court martial? Are you accepting there are inefficiencies in the way in which this system is carried out?

Mr Rooks: Most of the cases which are receiving criticism now are quite old. They are ones which occurred after the cessation of hostilities in Iraq when the situation was extremely dangerous. I do not think any of us would deny that the SIB was under-resourced for what was happening at that time. What we have done since is train a number of additional so-called Level 3 investigators who deal with serious offences and SIOs who supervise them. We have also increased the actual equipment and support which deployed SIB people in Iraq have. They were rather short of the basic things like vehicles, computers and so forth. That has been rectified and therefore matters are now better. I think I should say that those extra people were taken from the bulk of the police force, so they were not extra to the RMP but at least they were extra people for investigations.

Q516 Chairman: If we are talking about inefficiencies, presumably they were failures in not having the right computer equipment, the right vehicles in place and not human inefficiencies.

Brigadier Findlay: I think what the judge is reflecting is the overall challenge we face on the delay of the production of casework. Perhaps I might just try and explain some of the challenges which we face in the Service Police which are not characteristic in a civil police investigation; this is the tremendous mobility of the armed force structure where it exists. The incident might have taken place in Germany. The troops may then take part in exercises in Canada, at the British Army unit or they may go on leave to the United Kingdom. We have a very, very mobile population. The two major reasons for delay in investigations relate to either forensic submissions - and that is something that is characterised in the civil community as well - or indeed the availability of military witnesses. That is where the inefficiency comes about because of the very mobile nature of the military population. That is not quite the same challenge as you have with a far more static civilian population in any county police force's operational area. We have done a great deal in the last six months to rationalise electronically the management of our case files through something called the Electronic Case File Register which I can look at from my office individually in Uphaven in Wiltshire and then apply appropriate command and control pressure to speed up the production of witnesses to cases and allow that to progress. Within the last three months we have reduced case file delay by 30 per cent. That is an improvement responding to the judge's comments in the newspaper at the weekend.

Q517 Mr Jones: Most police forces that I know of now are very strict on a clear case management system whereby if things are not done by certain dates they are reviewed.

Brigadier Findlay: As I do in exactly the same way.

Q518 Mr Jones: Have you got a similar system?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes, I do and I can review that on a weekly basis.

Q519 Mr Jones: The judge goes on in this article to say that delays undermine the effectiveness of the court martial system. Would you agree that any delay leads not only to pressure on those individuals accused but also in terms of the credibility of the court martial system?

Brigadier Findlay: Indeed, because justice delayed is justice denied in that respect. The management of delay in all aspects of a military criminal justice system - and we have just been talking about the military police portion of that - is the Adjutant-General's highest priority. I am held accountable on a monthly basis to him for that case-by-case.

Q520 Mr Howarth: I want to ask you a specific question on your forensic capabilities. Do you have your own laboratories for your SIB people to work with or are you reliant on Home Office laboratories, forensic laboratories, databases and so on? How well trained are your people in these forensic skills?

Brigadier Findlay: The forensic crime scene examiners we train ourselves by utilising courses both internal to the Service Police and also Home Office approved courses, for example at Durham. All of our submissions to forensic laboratories go into the civilian system. There is no extant military mechanism solely provided for that purpose as it would not be cost-effective. Overall, in terms of the type of forensic analysis which we regularly submit, we have the use of the Forensic Science Service to analyse DNA fingerprints, ballistics, metallurgy, digital images, computer analysis and traffic accident investigations. Let me give you an idea of the scale. In the last 12 months I have spent just short of £1 million sterling in relation to forensic submissions and technical support to SIB investigations around the world, but it is all contracted out and that is one of the challenges because we have to take our share in that queue with the civil community.

Q521 Chairman: And this applies to all three Services, does it?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: Yes.

Commander Price: It is on a much smaller scale but it is mirrored, yes.

Q522 Mr Burrowes: Looking at the distinction between the military system and the civilian criminal law in relation to PACE and reviewing continued detention for the arrested person, could you explain the reasons for distinguishing between the civilian system in relation to reviews, where the civilian system we have reviews cases carried out by an officer independent of the investigation and some other higher rank, normally an inspector and then, after 24 hours, by a superintendent. Why does a Commanding Officer have that particular role?

Brigadier Findlay: The major difference is that in the civilian system it is the civil police who are responsible under PACE for the issue of custody. In the military system the Service Police are not responsible for custody. We do not maintain the custody cells, for example, we are not accountable for that, that is a matter for the Commanding Officer. Since the Service Police have been conducting the investigation separately from the Commanding Officer, he is perhaps in a better position to judge the requirement for the continued detention and, after all, it has to go before a judicial officer at the prescribed time, a Judge Advocate. The great difference between civil police and Service Police responsibilities is that the civil police are responsible for custody, they look after the people and they go into civil police cells. Service Police do not maintain cells. That duty is held by the unit.

Q523 Mr Burrowes: Is there not an argument for saying that there should be that independence in terms of a review of continued detention by the Service Police?

Brigadier Findlay: I could not guarantee in every operational circumstance where custody was required that a Service policeman could be present given the very devolved and expeditious nature of the article and the limited numbers of Service Police. You will not find them, for example, scattered throughout all elements of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Q524 Mr Burrowes: So they may not be done for operational reasons.

Brigadier Findlay: I would say at the moment structurally we are not responsible, as the civil authority is, for the custody of people in detention.

Q525 Mr Burrowes: Is there a Code of Practice that is published particularly in relation to detention in the military system?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes. By chance and as a parallel responsibility I, as Provost Marshal of the Army, am responsible for policy associated with the detention of personnel inside the Military Corrective Training Centre at Colchester, which I believe you have visited. A sister organisation to the military police, the Military Provost Staff, some of whom you met on your visit, are actually the professional custody officers for those who are committed to serve sentences of detention in that site. Yes, there is a Code of Practice. Equally, all the guardroom facilities in which somebody would be detained during an investigation, for example, are licensed and inspected and that Code of Practice has to be followed.

Q526 Mr Burrowes: Is there a draft Code of Practice in relation to the proposed Bill?

Brigadier Findlay: The proposed Bill is not likely to change the mechanisms associated with a detention.

Q527 Mr Burrowes: What is the practice in terms of the recording of someone being in detention and a review of the continued detention and whether that should be made implicit in the Bill in terms of recordings?

Brigadier Findlay: The authorisations for contended detentions are contained within Army policy documents associated with summary dealing and custody, which is a responsibility placed on the Commanding Officer and the chain of command, ie the review mechanisms, the timings, the record of that and, equally, the Judge Advocate's rulings as and when the time approaches for his review.

Commander Price: The custody rules are exactly the same for all three Services.

Q528 Vera Baird: What you are saying is the civilian record would be a custody record which would have a good deal more on it than the things you have just set out. Have you comprehensively set out what is on the custody document which is equivalent to the civilian custody record?

Brigadier Findlay: I do not have that with me. I do not have something to refer to and compare. It is my belief that that contains similar related information of when reviews take place, who makes the review, the justification for the continued detention and then, of course, the rulings because in the end this is going to be tested ultimately by the Judge Advocate to whom continued detention has to be approved.

Q529 Chairman: It might be of helpful when you do have the opportunity to double-check that, if there is anything you feel that you want to add to what you have said today, you sent us a note on that.

Brigadier Findlay: This is a matter of wider policy for the chain of command. It is not exclusively a matter for the Service Police, as I was trying to explain to Mr Burrowes.

Mr Burrowes: It would be useful to see the document and to see the Code of Practice as well.

Q530 Vera Baird: If you could anonymise it, I would like to see a custody record which has been kept to see what is on it. That would be most useful because I suspect that very much less is recorded than is recorded in a civilian case. Who checks that he is fit to be detained for instance?

Brigadier Findlay: That is not a matter for the Service Police. In respect of the chain of command, it is actually Army policy that you are questioning me on here at the moment as opposed to something distinctly within my areas of responsibility. As a Service policeman I am not normally required to become involved in recording the details of detention, it is the Commanding Officer's responsibility. Quite rightly, that is a question that would be more appropriate to have gone to DPSA when you had him here. I will endeavour to provide the Committee with that information.

Commander Price: The custody record is kept with the police case file because it has to be referred to.

Vera Baird: I would be surprised if it was not. I am just slightly concerned that some of this seems to be going into a black hole and that all that appears to be recorded is the minimum, ie the times of the review. The civilian custody record may be more comprehensive and he is checked on every half an hour or every hour and much more detail is put on it, ie visits, attendance by his lawyer, all of those things which all appear to be missing, but I would be interested to see the document.

Q531 Mr Jones: I sat on the Duty of Care inquiry undertaken by the Defence Committee in the last Parliament and the MoD confirmed then that prime responsibility for maintaining and enforcing criminal law in the UK rests with the home department. The Bill makes no provision for how shared jurisdiction should be regulated. In written evidence to the Committee JUSTICE has expressed some concern that any protocol between the CPS and the DPS governing this exercise of dual jurisdiction within the UK should be formalised prior to the Act coming into force. Do you agree with that?

Mr Rooks: We have not really seen any difficulties with dual jurisdiction.

Q532 Mr Jones: Then you obviously did not read our report in the last Parliament on Duty of Care.

Mr Rooks: We recognise that the civil police have primacy, the home department civil police as opposed to the MDP who are also the civil police. The home department civil police have primacy on everything, but there is a protocol which is formalised with the Home Office which sets out what will happen in normal circumstances and that is, broadly speaking, that a list of serious crimes, which include murder and rape, will automatically be reported by the Commanding Officer or the Service Police, if they are the first responder because you never quite know how these things will arise, to the home department police force and they then decide how to deal with the investigation. For a serious crime of that sort they will almost certainly decide to lead that investigation themselves. They may well use the expertise of either the Service Police or the MDP, but they will definitely be in the lead.

Q533 Mr Jones: Clause 113 of the Bill places a duty on the Commanding Officer to report a serious offence to the Service Police but not to the local constabulary.

Mr Rooks: The requirement for the Commanding Officer to report to the local constabulary is contained in Queen's Regulations rather than in the Bill. There is no doubt that for those serious crimes the Commanding Officer must report to the local constabulary in the UK. I think the issue with the Bill, although I have not been associated with drafting it, is that it applies across the world. Certainly in some overseas countries you would not involve a civil constabulary in an offence.

Q534 Mr Jones: The Bill delegates the responsibility to the Service Police. With the Duty of Care report, which was extensive evidence, one of the key problems and certainly one of the criticisms of Deepcut by the families and others was the fact that the Service Police were the first to investigate some of these things. I know Mr Key has got some issues to raise on this later on. That then leads to problems in terms of securing evidence afterwards, and certainly Surrey Police were quite critical of the way some of those things were done. Do you think it should be clear that in the UK, if primacy is with the home department, they should be the people that are called in first and not the Service Police, which then leads to the type of accusations which were made quite clearly by some of the families afterwards? It is another example of the military investigating the military.

Brigadier Findlay: There is absolutely no doubt in the minds of the Service Police over the complete primacy of the civil authority to investigate all issues within the United Kingdom.

Q535 Mr Jones: But effectively it does not work like that.

Brigadier Findlay: Perhaps you would like to expand your question further and I can come back to you.

Q536 Mr Jones: As with Deepcut and some of the other investigations, the first person on the scene is basically the Service Police, is it not?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes, and initially whoever is first on the scene of any incident must take the immediate action to secure it. Thereafter, there is no doubt that by the most rapid means the matter must be handed over to those who have primacy, who in the United Kingdom are in all circumstances the civil authorities. There has never been a doubt in the minds of the SIB, from any of the three Services, as to where primacy lies inside the United Kingdom. I did make clear when I gave evidence to your Duty of Care inquiry that there is no doubt in our minds about it and that needs to be reinforced at the scene of any incident to ensure that the civil authority pick up that liability and run with it.

Vera Baird: Should it be on the face of the Bill?

Q537 Mr Jones: I agree that there is no doubt in my mind and in your mind about where primacy lies, but has it led to difficulty in terms of jurisdiction between the two?

Brigadier Findlay: No, it has not for us because there is absolutely no doubt who has the whip hand in terms of control and liability for it. We are only going to be there in support of actions by the civil authority.

Q538 Chairman: Would it remove any doubt if in some way that was reflected on the face of the Bill?

Brigadier Findlay: That is a matter for those drafting it, but I am entirely clear about my responsibilities.

Q539 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Obviously there are difficulties when you try and investigate crime in the operational theatre. If you look at the case of Iraq, you have got the added cultural difficulties as well. When General Sir Michael Walker gave evidence he said that trying to get forensic evidence at a scene where an alleged crime is said to have taken place when bombs and bullets and things are going off is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. Brigadier Findlay, in response to a previous question you said that your Special Investigation Branch officers are trained with the Home Office forensic skilled people. Do they get any special training before they go out to operational theatres like Iraq?

Brigadier Findlay: There is special preparatory training in terms of the cultural environment which they are going into. One of the greatest challenges in Iraq is the rapidity with which bodies of the deceased are buried and indeed the graves may not be marked. There is quite reasonably, because of religious sensitivity, enormous unwillingness to accede to exhumation and in some cases the families will intentionally not mark the graves in order to ensure that that request, if made, cannot be met. So there are all sorts of challenges like that. What we have done as a result of the lessons learned in Iraq is prepare packages of briefing material associated with trying to contextualise the environment that the investigation will be conducted within because each theatre brings with it a particular cultural and environmental challenge, not least also when you add to that the force protection challenge that you have in trying to acquire evidence in a highly volatile and unstable environment where active operations may still be in progress. In terms of additional technical and specialist training, that really depends on the lessons that we have learned as we have progressed through in the cycles over the last two years, not least in Afghanistan. We are likely to face similar challenges when we move additional numbers of troops into Afghanistan this year.

Q540 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Is that training that occurs just before they are deployed out there or is it a matter of course?

Brigadier Findlay: It is principally contextually relevant at the period just before deployment and it is a six to eight period of windup that we have. It is done on an entirely joint Services basis now as all of the operational deployments in Iraq and in Afghanistan are at least at the moment represented by a large proportion of RMP SIB but also with elements of the Royal Air Force Police SIB working in an integrated investigative team out there and the same, I am delighted to say, is about to happen with the Afghanistan deployment.

Q541 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Do you have any access to Home Office forces' investigatory facilities out in the theatre?

Brigadier Findlay: There are no deployed forensic assets of a civilian nature in any of these theatres but there is a reach back capability to bring that out. It is hugely constrained by force protection. For example, for deaths which take place in certain of the overseas theatres, which could be in any of the deployed locations but also in the permanent bases such as Cyprus and Gibraltar and so on, we have in the past moved Home Office forensic pathologists out there. Professor Peter Vanezis, who is the resident consultant forensic pathologist for the Army and works in London, normally flies out to the scene of a death. That would be seriously constrained if it was in an operational theatre where ongoing operations were in progress. We have taken ballistics experts, for example, out to northern Afghanistan, north of Kabul, to deal with shooting incidents. We have standing contracts with some of these specialists in the Forensic Science Service but particularly Home Office pathologists.

Q542 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: So you are quite happy to use the expertise of the Home Office if you need to do this reach back. How important is the Service context to SIB investigations if you are quite happy to use the Home Office?

Brigadier Findlay: The main part of the investigation has been conducted by military investigators who understand the Service context principally because they are out there with the deployed troops and they are actually in there sharing the same levels of risk associated with the force protection challenge in that theatre. Being able to understand the mechanism and the operational circumstances in which an incident may have taken place is absolutely pivotal to being able to put the right context into the report which may come to trial, as Mr Jones said, several years later. I believe it is critically important that we have military investigators, people with Service experience, who are actually serving out there continuously with that team.

Q543 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Would the other two agree with that?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: I would agree with that. That is one of the reasons why the RAF has contributed to this integrated SIB structure that the Brigadier mentioned. There are RAF forces operating in Iraq as well. We see that understanding of the Service environment as being extremely important.

Commander Price: The RN has not been exposed in the same way as the Army and the RAF and so it is pretty limited. In terms of contextualising, it is exactly the same, you need to understand the submarine environment.

Q544 Robert Key: Where there is an issue of forensic science in any of these cases and you have described how important it is that there should be a reach back available, is any forensic science training given to members of boards of courts martial in how to interpret that evidence? I say this because in the last Parliament the Science and Technology Committee did a report on the Forensic Science Service and a Crown Court judge gave evidence to make it clear that there was indeed a great abuse of forensic science in the courts because permanent judges were untrained and incapable of interpreting forensic science efforts. What do you do about that in the military circumstance?

Brigadier Findlay: I am afraid I cannot even comment on that because it would be improper for me to comment on the relative qualifications of members of boards of courts martial and it is not a Service Police matter.

Q545 Robert Key: I am sure Mr Rooks would have a view because your responsibility is very much wider.

Mr Rooks: My responsibilities are for safety and security and in part I deal with overarching police policy. I am afraid I do not deal with courts martial. The courts martial does have a professional Judge Advocate chairing it. I would imagine that the training for the Judge Advocate would be similar to the training for civil judges, but I do not know. Can I offer to the Committee that we come back to you on that?

Robert Key: Yes, please.

Q546 Vera Baird: Do you all have protocols about scenes of crime procedures? I am just wondering how easy it is for Home Office people to come in and interpret what has been done on the ground by the military investigators. Do you have protocols amongst the three investigation bureaus and do those protocols accord with the Home Office protocols so that your scenes of crime officer takes photographs at each stage and all that kind of thing?

Brigadier Findlay: The training is Home Office accredited entirely. So we are utilising the ACPO guidelines and we have accreditation at appropriate levels and it is approved, for instance, by the Forensic Science Department at Durham. So we are using identical mechanisms in terms of what our crime scene examiners would be doing at a scene and therefore the Home Office pathologist would come to expect exactly the same capability. It has to be contextualised at the scene which may not be quite as controllable in an operational theatre as it would be in Surrey.

Commander Price: It is on a tri-Service basis.

Brigadier Findlay: That is why it is so common that elements of our forensic science staff resettle into that type of employment with the Civil Police.

Q547 Mr Jones: In terms of the preservation of forensic data not just in terms of the police but also Commanding Officers, because often they are the people who are the first there, do they get any training? During the Duty of Care inquiry a Mrs Sharples told us "that there had been no investigation into her son's death; there was no preservation of the scene of crime; and the gun that was assumed to have fired the fatal shot had been washed and put back on the rack without any forensic examination." We heard about quite a few of these cases. I had a constituent of mine who died in Bosnia and the way in which the family was treated and also the crime scene was treated did appall me because there were quite a few assumptions made in this case that was put down to suicide that it was just that. Clearly when the civilian police find a body they do not work on the basis that it is natural causes or a suicide.

Brigadier Findlay: As I said to you in that Committee, a lot of lessons were learned following the issues of undetermined death and I purposely used that term, which I explained to you at the time last year, as it seriously adjusted what was the relative perception and mindset at that time. In terms of training for Commanding Officers, non-Service Police, guidance and advice has been given to the chain of command in relation to what to do and what not to do with a scene until the first police qualified person comes on the scene, because it could be ourselves or it could easily be the civil authority themselves, to ensure that critical aspects of that scene are preserved in its entirety until the SIO can come forward.

Q548 Mr Jones: Is that written guidance that has been given out?

Brigadier Findlay: To the best of my knowledge it is because it came out of a learning account that was conducted as a result of these investigations.

Q549 Mr Jones: Could we have a copy of that?

Brigadier Findlay: That is a matter I will pass back to the chain of command, yes.

Q550 Jim Sheridan: I want to pursue the reputation of the Service Police and indeed the SIB following Deepcut and Catterick. There has been a great deal of criticism both from the families involved but from more senior people like the Advocate General. Putting aside the armchair critics, has the reputation of the Services or the police been damaged and, if it has been damaged in your opinion, what steps can be taken to try and restore the confidence that the general public and the families of the people in the Armed Services should have in you?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes, the reputation has been damaged and I am very conscious of that, but I am also very conscious of the challenging circumstances in which investigations are conducted. I think at that point it would be very fair to separate the two parts of your observation, which is first in relation to the Duty of Care inquiry and the clear acceptance that we needed to approach investigations with a much, much more open mind associated with undetermined death. That has taken place and there has been a significant change in posture as a result of it. In terms of the criticisms of the SIB on investigations that are taking place in operational theatres, what I am grateful to have is the unequivocal support from the Chief of the General Staff and the Army Board and the continued support of CDS and the Minister for the operations that the SIB conduct in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. These are not easy and will never be popular from that perspective. Sadly, we are dealing with very highly charged circumstances here where incidents associated with potentially criminal activity are taking place in what is still a highly charged and very dangerous environment. However, if you do want to have a police investigation it quite obviously has to be thorough, there could not be any half measure. If there were to be then I would stand charged with inadequacy as opposed to what has been described in the press as over-zealousness.

Q551 Jim Sheridan: I am absolutely delighted that you have the confidence of senior Service personnel and senior ministers, but the question I am asking is about the confidence that the Service personnel have in you as a service and, more importantly, the families and the general public. I accept that the establishment is confident in you, but what I am trying to establish is your reputation amongst the general public, the families and the Service personnel. What are you doing to reassure them that you are carrying out a professional job?

Mr Rooks: We do have full confidence in the SIB that they are a very professional force, but you are absolutely right, it is not sufficient for us inside the organisation to have confidence; we have to make sure that the Service earns the confidence of the general public as well. We are looking at a range of governance measures which we hope will improve matters in that area. The first of which, and I think a very powerful measure, is to invite Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) to undertake an independent inspection of various aspects of the Service Police force. We are confident the Service Police forces will come out well from that, but that will be completely independent of the MoD and the establishment. HMIC has agreed to do that and we are starting with a thematic inspection of the RMP SIB because that is the area that has been most criticised and we hope that report will be available by the summer. It is not quite signed and sealed yet, but that is our aim.

Q552 Jim Sheridan: And HMIC will be privy to all the information, will it?

Mr Rooks: Yes, absolutely, they will have a free rein.

Q553 Mr Jones: How regular is that going to be? I think that is needed. One of the pressures or oversights for the civilian home service is the fact that they are regularly inspected so that they can ensure that standards are kept up. Should we not have a system whereby this is done on a regular basis?

Mr Rooks: That is the aim.

Q554 Mr Jones: There is a difference between an aim and an actual thing when it comes to civil servants.

Mr Rooks: This is really just hot off the press. The agreement was reached with HMIC only a week or so ago. They are not yet used to inspecting in a Service environment. I think they are as keen to do a trial but important inspection to start with. We can all learn from that. The full intention is to go ahead and do inspections of the other two Service Police forces as well and then go beyond the SIB and inspect other aspects of the Service.

Q555 Mr Jones: You did not answer the question. Is this going to be a regular inspection?

Mr Rooks: It is intended to be regular.

Q556 Mr Jones: How regular?

Mr Rooks: That is something we want to work through with HMIC. We have not yet finally decided that.

Q557 Mr Jones: That is not a decision for them, it is a political decision, a ministerial decision. My police force in Durham is inspected regularly. Should we not have the same system for the Service Police? Is there going to be a political decision to do that?

Mr Rooks: That is the intention. That is as far as I can go at this stage. That would be my recommendation.

Brigadier Findlay: I am very conscious that accountability and governance are key issues. I already am subject to inspection in a variety of ways. For example, the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner inspects me on an annual basis.

Q558 Mr Howarth: What on earth is that?

Brigadier Findlay: The regulation of the Investigatory Powers Act includes provision for the Service Police to conduct covert surveillance activities in criminal cases. As a result the Surveillance Commissioner and his staff inspect the Service Police covert operations activities and the authorisations provided by myself as the Chief Officer and that is endorsed by the Surveillance Commissioner himself and that takes place on an annual basis. Equally, the Interception Commissioner deals with the same in terms of our activities on telecommunications.

Q559 Mr Howarth: How long has that been under way?

Brigadier Findlay: That has been in existence since RUPA (?) came into force in 2000. So I am regularly subjected to review by a senior judge in respect of the technical aspects of my job, but I take your point, governance and accountability are critical to credibility externally.

Q560 Jim Sheridan: I assume the findings of HMIC will be made public.

Brigadier Findlay: HMIC normally reports to the Chief Officer. What happens to that subsequently is a matter for the Department.

Q561 Chairman: They would normally be made public after that though, would they not?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes.

Mr Rooks: They would be made public.

Q562 Bob Russell: Brigadier Findlay, Lord Guthrie, who is somewhat knowledgeable in these military matters, said in the House of Lords that he had been told that some soldiers believed that "the Special Investigations Branch had become more interested in achieving prosecutions than searching for the truth". Why do you think that perception has arisen?

Brigadier Findlay: The purpose of any investigation is neutral, ie it is to establish the facts which may serve either to exonerate the innocent or assist with the prosecution of the guilty. He is talking about investigations in operational theatres. Let me return to my previous remarks about the tension and pressure which comes in that environment in particular. Nobody likes being investigated by the police, but the thoroughness of that investigation is absolutely critical to our professional credibility if we are to avoid continuous criticism subsequently if prosecutions fail. I am delighted to say those remarks are not necessarily shared across the Army but I do accept the position from which they have come. All I can say is it is unfortunate it is not a matter which has resulted in any formal complaints to me from soldiers concerned or indeed the chain of command. The police and the military in particular perhaps will never be popular in that respect. In 1627, in Charles I's Articles of War it says that the Provost cannot be beloved. We do not have a particularly popular job and nothing has changed in that respect.

Robert Key: Join the club!

Q563 Bob Russell: How damaging is the perception to the average soldier who is out there serving Queen and country when he believes the perception is that the Special Investigations Branch is more interested in achieving prosecutions than in searching for the truth? Do you accept that perception is there?

Brigadier Findlay: It may be in somebody's eyes, but I do not believe that is a generally held perception, particularly when one looks at the overall scale of investigations. I know this has been brought up many times both in debate and in evidence on the 80,000 troops or so that have gone through and the 189 investigations. In general terms this is not an all pervasive investigative environment, but those who are potentially subject to an investigation will inevitably feel threatened by it, as you would do yourself if you were subject to an investigation in the UK.

Q564 Bob Russell: I think the perception amongst those who have not yet been subject to an investigation is that they are being watched unfairly.

Brigadier Findlay: I think with the numbers of troops involved it is quite difficult, but you would not for a moment suggest, would you, that troops, if any criminality had taken place, would consider themselves to be above the law?

Q565 Bob Russell: Certainly not.

Brigadier Findlay: We are still operating within a civilised society where laws have to be applied. Equally, the investigative mechanisms in support of the authority of the chain of command are critical and we are a portion of that.

Q566 Bob Russell: But some of those in the front line may perceive that. What is the military doing to try and alter that perception?

Brigadier Findlay: I am not in a position to be able to back away from my responsibilities in that respect.

Q567 Vera Baird: Coming back to clause 113 and the Commanding Officer's duty to notify the police, I think it is confined to notifying the Service Police when he suspects something has been committed within Schedule 2, which are inherently serious offences, but there are some offences which are either very serious, for instance theft, because a lot of money has been stolen or not very serious because it is very small. How do you think that duty to report is going to function and how do you want it to function in those areas?

Commander Price: If it is inherently serious and there are circumstances to indicate that like theft then the COs will make the Service Police aware. I can speak from a naval perspective where you have Service Police embedded within units. Where this is the case the Service Police will investigate independently of the chain of command and in concert with the Service prosecuting authorities. Clearly where you have got Service policemen embedded within the unit then they follow normal police practice. In that sense they would be working on behalf of the CO, so they will make a judgment of the seriousness in concert with the prosecuting authority.

Q568 Vera Baird: Do you think that, albeit an offence may not come under Schedule 2 because of its nature, it may be serious or it may be trivial, nonetheless a judgment will be made by the Commanding Officer as to whether in this case that offence is serious and at that point he will decide to bring in the police? If that is the case and how it is going to work, that is an awfully wide discretion for a Commanding Officer to have to exercise, is it not?

Brigadier Findlay: The Commanding Officer at present can ask the Service Police to assist him with an investigation really at any level depending upon whether he feels he is competent enough himself to get on with it or he would like it done by the Service Police. We provide that facilitation now in any of the garrisons throughout the world really regardless of the seriousness or otherwise of the offence. With most serious offences he has to do so.

Q569 Vera Baird: This is the point, at what level ought he to have to do so? If you are going to confine that duty to Schedule 2 offences then he has discretion outside of that. Theft is the easy example. Theft is not under Schedule 2 because it is not inherently serious. It may be very trivial, just a can of beans or something. If you do not have an obligation beyond the inherently serious offences listed in Schedule 2 how is a Commanding Officer going to exercise that discretion? It is a very wide discretion for him to have, is it not? What do you think about it? Are you concerned about your involvement being triggered on what may be a rather random basis depending on how individual Commanding Officers view individual offences in terms of gravity?

Mr Rooks: Our feeling, and we cannot know this until it happens, is that the Commanding Officer will call in the Service Police far more often than not. Even if he can deal with the case under summary jurisdiction, the accused has the right of appeal and for that appeal to be defended the Commanding Officer will understand that he or she has to be in command of evidence which will stand up in a full court of law as opposed to a summary proceeding. My belief is that the Commanding Officer will actually call for Service Police assistance more often than not, even in much more trivial cases than ones abutting section 2 cases.

Q570 Vera Baird: I perceive that it is possible for you to have a vulnerability here in the sense that if somebody commits an offence and the Commanding Officer decides in his discretion he does not have to call you in and then there is an appeal, for instance, or if the matter is graver that it would first appear you are then in a difficulty for not having investigated it. Any subsequent judge will say we cannot really deal with this because we did not get the forensic survey. Would you not prefer to have a much bigger list of offences for which he has to bring you in so you are absolutely clear about it?

Commander Price: This is going to be covered under Clause 114 in more detail where prescribed circumstances are set out and I believe that work is currently under way. It will give the Commanding Officer a clearer steer on for what or when he should be calling in the Service Police.

Q571 Vera Baird: You would want it to be as clear and as fixed as possible, would you not?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes. In section 114 the subordinate legislation will specify a much wider set of circumstances, for example the value associated with theft investigations.

Q572 Mr Howarth: Let me move on to this area of discretion and uncertainty. Section 114 of the Bill says, "If an officer of a prescribed description becomes aware of circumstances of a prescribed description, he must as soon as it is reasonably practical ensure that a service police force is aware of the matter. In this section "prescribed" means prescribed by regulations under section 127." It is quite clear that that is extremely vague. We are told in the explanatory note that this clause will allow allegations of particular sensitivity to be referred immediately to the Service Police. Can you give us an example of where you see this kind of power being used? Do you think it is satisfactory to have it on the face of the Bill in such a vague manner? Should those regulations be placed before this Committee now?

Mr Rooks: I think this goes back to the previous question because a difficulty for us representing, in my case, the police broadly is that we do not quite know what this recommendation will contain because it is still under consideration, but my understanding is that it will specify that theft over a particular financial value will be included in this list and will have to be reported. It will almost be an extension of section 2. A second layer of offences will need to be reported. Systematic bullying would be likely to come into that list, systematic racially motivated incidents, things which the Services simply will not tolerate. Woundings may well be defined as to what level of assault would be included. From a Service Police point of view, provided it is clearly written down, it does not matter whether it is on the face of the Bill or in regulation keeping with the clarity.

Brigadier Findlay: And it may have to be adjusted over time as well depending on what the focus of criminality is and how the developments take place. I would agree that systematic levels of bullying are of specific and particular interest as are racially motivated issues.

Q573 Mr Howarth: Those are two categories that you see. The monetary value of theft which obviously would have to be revised in accordance with the value of money ---

Commander Price: Incidents which involve serious injury. Mr Rooks gave woundings as an example. In an incident where serious injury has occurred clearly the Service Police need to be involved. I see that being in proscribed circumstances as well.

Q574 Mr Howarth: Clause 115 suggests that you can be involved in the investigation of incidents which are to be dealt with summarily. Do you currently conduct such investigations together with a Commanding Officer's own staff? What type of summary incident would you be called upon to investigate where the Commanding Officer has summary powers of jurisdiction?

Commander Price: Yes, we do already do that sort of work, and I think it has been touched on earlier. Very often, Commanding Officers will want something to be investigated by the Service police simply because that might have a professional evidence-gathering facility, which their own staff do not necessarily have. That, really, for all of us (and my colleagues will tell me if I have this wrong) is some of our bread-and-butter work. There are variances between the ways that the single Services actually operate. If by conducting it with Commanding Officer staff you mean will a Service policeman go along and help members of the Commanding Officer staff, no; either the Commanding Officer will call in the Service police to investigate something or he or she will not. It is not, in my experience, something where we have a joint team of policemen and other people doing it. What types of summary incident? Well, we have touched on some of these. I think some of this will overlap into the Section 114 issues such as minor assault and minor thefts - those types of things - but nevertheless there is a possibility that they will go through the full summary and then through the full disciplinary process, but this is something that we do already.

Q575 Mr Howarth: So, essentially, no change in the existing procedure?

Brigadier Findlay: No. All of our volume investigations at the lower levels, associated with simple assaults, criminal damage and driving offences in Germany, for example, will fall to summary dealing and that is exactly normal business at the moment.

Vera Baird: I just wanted to ask you at what level domestic violence is usually dealt with because there are problems of domestic violence in the military as there are in the police and, indeed, in the world at large. Is that issue dealt with summarily or usually are you called on to investigate it? Do you regard that as something that, perhaps, should be in Clause 114?

Q576 Jim Sheridan: Would sexual harassment or sexual abuse come under the same criteria as assault?

Brigadier Findlay: We would expect to be involved directly in the investigation. You mentioned sexual abuse - we are talking about criminality here. In terms of harassment issues, there is also separate provision for investigation by the Equal Opportunities Inquiry Team, which I am responsible for, and the other Service Provost Marshals have similar capabilities, depending on the levels of criminality associated. I think, Ms Baird, if we are talking about domestic violence particularly in the United Kingdom, that is a matter for the civilian authorities.

Q577 Mr Jones: What about in Germany?

Brigadier Findlay: In Germany we would be involved.

Q578 Vera Baird: This is domestic violence by Service personnel?

Brigadier Findlay: It depends on the level. Yes, indeed, on a wife, for example, or a spouse, yes, I would expect to be involved, which may result in criminal proceedings.

Q579 Mr Jones: If you go back two or three years, or even shorter periods, in the United Kingdom in the home department, domestic violence was actually seen as quite a trivial thing and was not investigated. It is now on the agenda and most police forces take it very seriously. Have you gone through that same mind-set in terms of training, in terms of recognising that it is a serious issue?

Brigadier Findlay: Particularly abroad. One of the key facilities that we have, not least in Germany, is our joint response team which deals with issues associated with child abuse and, indeed, also, domestic violence, which is an integrated structure of police and social workers, which operates as a joint venture. Effectively, we are providing that local authority service abroad, based on this team which is actually formed under our control at Gütersloh which looks after family issues associated with that on the continent. However, primacy in the United Kingdom associated with these issues would go to the civil authority.

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 104, 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 Scapelhorn: 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 Scapelhorn 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 promote it.

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 Scapelhorn: 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 our 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 in guarding agencies (?), 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 who 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 Scapelhorn: 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 Scapelhorn: 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 Scapelhorn: The Board of Inquiry tells them to.

Q597 Vera Baird: When is it convened?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: 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 Scapelhorn: 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.

Q600 Vera Baird: I am in no doubt of that when you are engaged, but you do not know what happens when the Military Police are not involved.

Brigadier Findlay: Quite right. It is a wider matter for the Services.

Mr Rooks: It is outside our competence here, but, again, we could get a note for you specifically on the gathering of forensic evidence.

Q601 Vera Baird: If it is not too far away from your remit, I would be very grateful for that. Since you are involved with Boards of Inquiry when there is a parallel criminal investigation, is there, in your view, any reason why the presumption should not be that next-of-kin be admitted - obviously, with a let-out if there is a security reason why not?

Brigadier Findlay: That, very generally, is a matter of Army policy, not a matter for the Service police.

Q602 Vera Baird: I am asking you, so tell me, please, what do you think?

Brigadier Findlay: My personal view is that where possible I would see that to be a very helpful opportunity, particularly in terms of confidence for the families. However, one would also wish to ensure that the Board of Inquiry was conducted in an environment where as much accuracy and freedom of speech was possible by those involved. So my personal view, which you are seeking, as opposed to my view as a policeman, is that openness would be helpful because it deals with gaining confidence. That may not always be possible, given the operational circumstances.

Q603 Vera Baird: I think I made clear that there has got to be a caveat that sometimes it would not be practical, but although you say you are speaking personally, and I accept that entirely, you are speaking with the benefit of having, I assume, a lifetime's experience in the role which you are currently occupying. Clearly, nothing springs straight to your mind which says: "No, they should not be there"; on the contrary, you prefer that they would be.

Brigadier Findlay: What a default situation may be is a different case entirely. I personally do not have a difficulty with that, but I could not judge all circumstances - not least, given the level of activity that takes place now in operational theatres.

Q604 Vera Baird: Do any of you gentlemen differ from Brigadier Findlay on that and have strong views to the contrary, or do you all share the view of this Committee that it would be helpful where possible?

Commander Price: On the point the Brigadier has made about the operational side, a Board of Inquiry being held on a ship could be potentially difficult in terms of health and safety, and what-have-you, in the same environment. So from the operational side, if you are asking for my personal view, I am the same as the Brigadier.

Group Captain Scapelhorn: I do not differ from that.

Mr Rooks: Yes, provided balance is the issue. Because a Board of Inquiry is designed to get to the truth in, in a sense, a non-legalistic way, we would not wish to inhibit the witnesses. That is the potential downside.

Mr Jones: I do not understand that, I am sorry, Chairman.

Q605 Chairman: No, I do not understand that. How would the presence of next-of-kin inhibit witnesses in any way?

Mr Rooks: I think the witness, potentially, might want to protect the next-of-kin and, therefore, say what they want to say in a less direct, more euphemistic way, which might be misleading.

Q606 Mr Jones: I am sorry, I have attended Coroner's Inquiries where that, actually, is the same thing. What is the difference between these circumstances and a Coroner's Inquiry, where, routinely, the ones I have attended, the family members have actually been there?

Mr Rooks: As I said, I support where possible the concept of families being there.

Q607 Mr Jones: So what you have just said is nonsense then.

Mr Rooks: No, I am merely saying that it is a potential problem.

Mr Burrowes: Chairman, you have raised this previously in terms of the relationship with the Coroner's Inquest. It would be helpful to have a general note in relation to Boards of Inquiry and Coroners, looking at how that process works and informing us as to the way a Board of Inquiry is set up.

Chairman: I think it would be helpful, but I am not sure whether it would be ----

Mr Burrowes: Not by these people; it would need to be by those behind.

Chairman: We have made a note of that. Can we move on. Gerald?

Q608 Mr Howarth: The Judge Advocate General has made great play about the need to bring military law as closely as possible into line with civilian law, and the Bill makes changes in that direction. In particular, it seeks to bring the military practice in line with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Can you explain what changes there are, as you see it, in this Bill which will affect the approximation of your practices to those of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act?

Mr Rooks: I am not really aware of changes in the Bill which will do that, though I am sure the Bill is drafted with the aim of being as close to PACE as possible. There is no doubt that we would wish to mirror it where it makes sense. The only part of PACE itself which applies to the Military Police is Part V which is about how to treat people in custody; how to question them, using tape-recorders and so forth. Because of the way the PACE legislation was set up, when the PACE legislation is updated in relation to the civilian police forces it does not automatically apply to the Service police forces, which means there has to be a statutory instrument, and that takes sometime. So the Service police forces tend to lag behind the civilian police forces for legislative reasons. There are a couple of quite important issues where that is the case at the moment and secondary legislation is required; in particular, the ability to take DNA samples on arrest or to take fingerprints on arrest. Civil police are allowed to do both and both are very important (and my colleagues will, no doubt, amplify that in terms of crime solving) and, at the moment, the Service police are not. So when that secondary legislation comes into place the Service police will be brought fully into line with the civilian police in that respect.

Q609 Mr Howarth: Does that go for the rest of you?

Brigadier Findlay: Yes, and we look forward to that.

Mr Howarth: It does militate rather in favour of the argument that there should be retained the annual review of Service law, on a practical basis, simply to allow you to have an instrument by which you might effect changes necessary to bring military law up-to-date, where it is appropriate, with civilian law.

Vera Baird: Do we not have those now?

Chairman: I think we are having a debate between ourselves, rather than with the witnesses.

Q610 Mr Howarth: I just wanted to put it on the record, Chairman. It was more a statement than a question. Can I just pursue this point about these changes which you suggest are going to be fairly minimal? Do you think there is a necessity for any additional training to be given to your personnel to accommodate such changes?

Brigadier Findlay: I think there is a very continuous process of training, particularly through the Defence Police College, in terms of our Tri-Service training courses now, where any adjustments to legislation take place; either policy notes are issued of a technical nature out to the field Army units which are shared with colleagues in the Air Force and the Navy in terms of technical application, or we will actually produce a new piece of training which can be delivered on site at Southwick or trickled outwards. I do not perceive that to be anything greater than is a normal continuum.

Mr Howarth: Thank you.

Q611 Mr Breed: Just quickly on the DNA database, as you are aware the police can, at the moment, take DNA material after an arrest and retain it even if there is no subsequent prosecution. Would you want that to apply to what you do? Would you support the setting up of a DNA database of all military personnel?

Brigadier Findlay: From the perspective of assisting in the solving of serious crimes, certainly the use of DNA records has been critical and has been very successful in major prosecutions in the last five to ten years.

Q612 Mr Breed: So you would support the view that you could take DNA on an arrest and if no subsequent prosecution took place you would wish to retain that information within the database for future reference?

Brigadier Findlay: I would.

Q613 Mr Jones: Can I turn to arrest, search and entry around some of the issues you have already mentioned about PACE? Civilian police can only exercise a statutory power of arrest when there are reasonable grounds for believing it is necessary for specific, defined operational reasons to affect the arrest. Is there any reason why, on the face of this Bill (military operational reasons) it should not be the same for the Armed Forces?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: I think that the short answer is probably no, there is not a reason why it should not be on the face of the Bill. Again, I am sure my colleagues would agree with me. I think, in practice, the Service police already apply a policy of specific defined operational reasons just on day-to-day business. We do not go and just arrest people because we can; there is always a reason for doing so. I think my only concern about it is that because of the range of operational environments in which we work I am not sure that the reasons would, therefore, be a straight lift of PACE Section 24, which are themselves quite wide, but, nevertheless, there will be other circumstances where it might be appropriate to arrest in a military context. Therefore, I think, there could be some difficulty in drafting a set of operational reasons. I think that would be my only concern.

Q614 Vera Baird: What do you think would be needed to be added to PACE?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: I think there would be issues, for example, over where there were specific Service offences - insubordination, for example, might be a circumstance where an arrest might be appropriate, but that certainly would not fit into any of the existing PACE Section 24 reasons.

Q615 Chairman: Because there is no equivalent?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: Because there is no equivalent of that particular offence. However, that could be a particularly serious offence in a military context.

Commander Price: I think the point is that we are dealing with Service personnel also being subject to Service laws, so it is a very limited environment.

Q616 Mr Jones: It is not beyond the wit of man to actually come up with a list of offences. Do you think it would also - if you did that and it was on the face of the Bill - have some sort of anchor back into civilian legislation in terms of PACE now? When it was brought in it was quite controversial, I remember, but now it is the accepted operation of the police. Would it not also strengthen any accusations that could be levelled at you that you have powers to arrest anybody at will? I am not suggesting you do, but in terms of giving you some protection in that respect, which is also given to the civilian police.

Brigadier Findlay: I do not believe it would unnecessarily constrain us but, of course, we have said we use that principle anyway. The greater challenge is for those who are not Service policemen and not involved in Service police inquiries but, maybe, dealing with issues of military discipline, particularly in an operational context.

Q617 Mr Jones: Can you give us an example?

Brigadier Findlay: Insubordination; communicating with the enemy; activities that are taking place in an operational environment. Put yourself in Iraq or Afghanistan where the Service police may not necessarily be on site or involved in the issue at all. The Bill itself deals with Service discipline as well as purely criminal offences.

Q618 Mr Jones: It is not beyond the combined wisdom to come up with these lists.

Brigadier Findlay: It may not be, and it may be unnecessarily tortuous to do so and prevent a Commanding Officer acting appropriately in the circumstances of an operational context. I think that would need to be thought through quite carefully before you prescribed it.

Q619 Mr Jones: It does not actually protect the Commanding Officer, in the sense that you are increasing his role. One could actually get a situation whereby a Service policeman (and it may happen presently), whereby someone goes down the legal process of actually arguing that their human rights, or whatever it is, have been infringed because of being arrested arbitrarily. I am not suggesting you do, on a regular basis.

Brigadier Findlay: You have made that observation; I have got no further comment to make.

Q620 Chairman: Those offences are all listed in Part I of the Bill.

Brigadier Findlay: The military offences, yes.

Q621 Vera Baird: You do not have an obligation currently, do you, to tell the individual what he is being arrested for? There is not a statutory obligation to that effect. Am I right?

Brigadier Findlay: No, but we do so. Procedurally, that is the mechanism.

Q622 Vera Baird: It should be a statutory obligation, should it not?

Brigadier Findlay: It would be clearer.

Q623 Vera Baird: Do you all agree?

Group Captain Scapelhorn: Yes.

Q624 Vera Baird: That could be done straightaway, or as soon as is reasonably practicable.

Group Captain Scapelhorn: As the Brigadier said, that is actually how people are taught to make arrests.

Vera Baird: I am sure it is, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Q625 Mr Howarth: I was just going to ask you, pursuant to the questions I was asking you earlier on at the outset, about forensic skills, I do not think I was really given a particularly comprehensive answer about the training in forensic skills which your people undergo and whether you are satisfied that, particularly on operations, they have the necessary forensic skills and, also, of course, ready access to the professional facilities, bearing in mind, as you said, that you cannot deploy laboratories out into theatre. You may want to answer it now or you may want to, perhaps, write us a note about it. Certainly I did take on board the message that you all felt that you were under-resourced.

Brigadier Findlay: I do not believe we are under-resourced in terms of the technical capability for crime scene examination on a site and, in particular, in an operational theatre, on the basis that in the middle range of seniority in the Army context, around about the Staff Sergeant level, after someone has been in the SIB as a specialisation for perhaps two or three years, having served perhaps 10 years overall in the Army by then (in other words a mature investigator) we train them on the joint Service special investigation scenes-of-crime course, which is taught at the Defence Police College and, also, with the Forensic Science Department at the University of Durham. That is the Home Office accreditation level for a crime scene examiner, as used in civil constabularies. So I am satisfied at that entry level of involvement - ie, the person who would go to the scene. In addition to that, we have the capability of higher levels in the Army at Warrant Officer level for forensic expertise at a much higher level of competence, and I certainly, in the Army, have two of these individuals, one based in Germany and one based in the United Kingdom, who can regularly attend major scenes, or indeed we fly them out as additional back-up as part of our reach-back capability to a major scene in an operational theatre. So I am satisfied that I have the capability there. When I reflected to you earlier on resources, I was talking about volume - actual numbers of investigators - as opposed to a specialist, niche market in the forensic area. I am happy to provide further information.

Q626 Mr Howarth: I think it might be helpful. Would you be happy to confirm that any of your people could readily be repositioned into a Home Office function and meet Home Office standards?

Brigadier Findlay: In terms of going to work as crime-scene examiners, yes, because I have regular examples of people being recruited for that purpose by counter-forces when they retire from the Army. It is a very marketable skill.

Q627 Chairman: We need to draw this to a close now. I think you have had notice of 16 questions, and we have only covered 14 of them. It would be helpful if you could give us your thoughts on the remaining two in writing, in addition to the various other bits and pieces that you have agreed to provide additional evidence on.

Mr Rooks: Certainly, Chairman.

Mr Howarth: May I ask one question in an "any questions" style? There is always a last question and it tends to be the most interesting. (I am not saying that I am going to ask the most interesting question.) Gentlemen, can I ask a question, as a matter of interest? The Brigadier referred to himself as a policeman. I am just curious why these three gentlemen, particularly, joined the Armed Forces to be policemen. I wondered if, in one sentence, they might tell us why, as a matter of interest. With your indulgence, Chairman.

Q628 Chairman: Purely in the spirit that we serve only to entertain Gerald Howarth!

Commander Price: Where do I start? I did not join the Navy to be a policeman. When I joined the Navy when I was 15 I was a cook. In 1977 I became a policeman, and I have made my career in this particular field.

Q629 Mr Jones: And you still cook?

Commander Price: And I can still cook.

Brigadier Findlay: The attraction, really, is two careers in one: policing, but in an Army context, which provides for you all of the capabilities and technical demands of civil policing but with a worldwide remit to play on, in a far, far greater and more challenging environment, operationally, than you would be likely to find in civil society.

Group Captain Scapelhorn: Like my Naval colleague, I did not join the Air Force to be a policeman either; I joined the Air Force to drive a boat. After five or six years of doing that the Air Force decided it looked like such fun that they would close it down, so I did this as an alternative.

Chairman: It would be an interesting exercise, if we had more time, to ask how we ended up as Members of Parliament! Perhaps, luckily for you, there is not such an opportunity available. Can I thank you very much. It has been very useful to us. If we may have been aggressive on occasions in our line of questioning, it was only in the spirit of the inquiry not in any malevolent spirit. So thank you very much for your joint wisdom. Thank you.