Examination of Witnesses (Questions 114-119)
CHIEF CONSTABLE
PAUL KERNAGHAN
CBE QPM, SUPERINTENDENT MIKE
FLYNN, MR
MICHEL QUILLE,
MR BILL
HUGHES AND
MR ROB
WAINWRIGHT
9 JANUARY 2007
Q114 Chairman: Good morning, may I thank
you for coming to give evidence to us this morning as part of
our inquiry into the relationship between various European Union
issues and justice and home affairs issues in this country. I
think the Committee are looking forward to your evidence this
morning. We are about half way through our inquiry and, without
pre-judging the report, it is fair to say we have had a lot of
discussion about some fairly conceptual issues about mutual recognition
in the European Union and harmonisation of legislation and so
on. To some extent it is obvious that the debates we have listened
to so far in the inquiry are driven, in part at least, by the
approach that people take to much bigger debates about what sort
of European Union we want and their conceptual and intellectual
approaches to the debate. This morning's sessions give us the
chance I think to hear from people who are in the frontline of
trying to tackle crime in the European Union, and also to keep
our citizens secure. We are very interested in the perspective
you have as senior operational people in delivering for the citizens
of this country and for others in Europe. What I would like to
do is to ask each of you to introduce yourselves for the record
and then we will begin the questioning. I shall start from my
right-hand side and go to the left.
Superintendent Flynn:
I am Superintendent Mike Flynn from Sussex Police. I work for
the Association of Chief Police Officers International Affairs,
to do with changes to business processes brought about by the
introduction of the Schengen Information System.
Chief Constable Kernaghan: My
name is Paul Kernaghan. I am the Chief Constable of Hampshire
Constabulary, and also lead for the Association of Chief Police
Officers in respect of International Affairs.
Mr Quille: I am Michel Quille.
I am Deputy Director of Europol and I am the Commissaire Divisionnaire
of the French National Police.
Mr Hughes: Bill Hughes. I am the
Director-General of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, responsible
since 1 April last year for dealing with serious organised crime
in the UK, and dealing with international relationships on behalf
of law enforcement in the UK.
Mr Wainwright: Rob Wainwright.
I am a Deputy Director in the Serious Organised Crime Agency responsible
for running the International Department of our Agency.
Q115 Chairman: May I start by saying
that where there is more than one of you from one organisation
I will leave it to yourselves to decide who should reply. Starting
with a general question: as we look at policing in the UK and
EU there seems to be a huge range of different places where police
forces come together. We have groups that come together to look
at cross-Channel issues; there are traffic policing groups coming
together; we have the Police Chiefs Task Force; we have Europol;
and we have European Union institutions like CEPOL as well. There
does seem to be a whole host of different arrangements for policing
cooperation across the European Union countries. The question
I would start with is: how do you actually ensure that these many
different arrangements are not duplicating, contradicting or undermining
each other, and they are actually working together as effectively
as possible?
Chief Constable Kernaghan: I recognise
the picture you paint, Chairman. I think we try and do a pragmatic
approach. You indicated TISPOL, the European traffic network;
that is represented by my colleagues on road policing from ACPO.
Europol, as you will hear from Bill in a few minutes, very much
takes the lead on that. CEPOL is the training; and CENTREX which
is the national training body; and our colleagues from ACPO in
Scotland interact with CEPOL. We try to take it on a pragmatic
basis. I think one thing I would say is that SOCA provides a one-stop
facility in respect of serious organised crime, a bespoke agency
which, again, Bill will flesh out; but we lack a one-stop shop
for the other police functions. As you are aware, we lack a central
police body, a core of staff, and that does cause problems. Who
represents us on certain bodies: historically I know Bill used
to represent us at the Police Chief Task Force. Primarily most
of their workload will be serious organised crime; it makes a
lot of sense; but occasionally they may have a police function
as such. Bill would recognise that SOCA is not a police agency.
Our approach to date has been pragmatic but I think we would be
in a stronger position if we had a single body in the UK that
dealt with the non-serious organised crime side. I think Bill
may have a view on that.
Q116 Chairman: Just to draw you out
a little on that—obviously there are a huge range of crimes
that fall outside SOCA, but what are the sorts of crimes that
are not covered by SOCA that give you most concern that have an
obvious European dimension, where that sort of cooperation is
likely to be most important?
Chief Constable Kernaghan: If
we go into it in depth you will hear about it in terms of systems
in Schengen etc, but SOCA does not have a role, for instance,
in respect of murder, or in respect of a single paedophile etc.
That is incredibly important information which is exchanged between
all the police forces of the European Union. There is lots of
serious crime which is not serious organised crime. It
is not the raison d'etre but it is what I would call day-to-day
bread and butter policing which engages all 52 territorial forces
of the UK.
Mr Hughes: I think Paul is absolutely
right. I do still represent the UK on the European Police Chiefs
Task Force. The pragmatic solution is that I keep Paul involved
where there are issues to do with general policy, functions that
come up there; but, as he says, most of the work ongoing in the
Police Chiefs Task Force concerns serious organised crime. There
is a police cooperation working group that operates in Brussels
as well as the EU, which looks at the type of work that Paul was
referring to. Again, there are UK representatives on that. The
point Paul is making is absolutely right, there needs to be something
which covers the more general policing functions that need to
be carried on. What SOCA does, where we can, we try to assist
of course, but it is not within our remit and it is really important
that ACPO and ACPOS in Scotland are represented in dealing with
the other countries, particularly within the EU. What we also
have of course within SOCA, and I know this is primarily concerned
with Europe, of course we also pick up the international liaison
officer network; we have inherited that from Customs with their
drug liaison officers, from NCIS, the National Criminal Intelligence
Service, with their overseas crime liaison officers; and Rob runs
all of that network which extends across almost 40 countries now,
with officers based in those countries operating on behalf of
the UK, not just on behalf of SOCA. They are also there to assist
in whatever they can. We also have good working relationships
within the EU. We have great cooperation particularly around the
CPS liaison magistrates that are based in Madrid, Paris and Rome
which helps enormously, particularly when dealing with some of
the harmonisation issues. In terms of policing I think it is still
the point that Paul is making—there needs to be some general
policing function.
Q117 Chairman: Mr Quille, your organisation
is relatively new and it comes into what seems to be quite a crowded
field of European police cooperation. How do you ensure that the
work of Europol is adding to the existing cooperation and not
simply adding another layer of activity which is duplicating what
was already there?
Mr Quille: Chairman, I understand
very well your concern. You ask if Europol tries to avoid duplication
of efforts and we have found that the case with Interpol mainly
and we are always trying to give an added value to investigation.
The aim of Europol is to support investigation conducted in the
Member States. For that we use tools that are not available in
other organisations. We have special databases: the analytical
work files. We have special databases dedicated to certain types
of crime: drug trafficking; trafficking in human beings, but very
targeted. No-one from other organisations has the same tool so
for that we avoid duplication. Also we avoid duplication with
having cooperation agreements with other organisations. With Interpol
for example we have a cooperation agreement—but not only
that. We have a liaison officer from Europol to Interpol, and
from Interpol to Europol, so we are constantly looking to avoid
duplication.
Q118 Chairman: There are a number
of issues in your answer that we will come back to. A final question
from me at this stage to Mr Hughes. We have learnt from the ACPO
submission that your organisation provides coordinated access
to Schengen, Europol and Interpol for UK policing. Could you just
explain briefly how that coordination process works?
Mr Hughes: We have officers based
at Europol as Michel has already explained. We have officers who
are placed in all of the EU countries. We have a national responsibility
for running the Schengen information system working with that
and the Sirene Bureau. We have a statutory responsibility under
the Act that set us up to support UK law enforcement and law enforcement
agencies in other countries; and that means our international
division is responsible for the coordination of the UK interface
with Interpol, Europol and the Schengen systems. We deal with
European Arrest Warrant requests; and areas of mutual legal assistance
come to us, all of those areas; and that is the work we perform
on behalf of UK law enforcement generally, not just the Police
Service, of course, but also HM Revenue and Customs and other
agencies responsible for dealing with law enforcement. Rob can
give you more details on the type of work that we do if you want
it in a bit more detail.
Q119 Chairman: What might be quite
useful for the Committee is, not too much detail, to pick a typical
operation for the Committee because I think we are interested
in the practical work of fighting crime. Can you give the sort
of case that would require SOCA to play that coordinating role
and relate to Schengen or Europol?
Mr Hughes: There are a couple
of recent examples. Operation Blue Sky was one that was an international
investigation into Turkish organised immigration crime. It was
led by the Metropolitan Police Service in the UK but it was supported
both by SOCA and Europol. Europol acted as the conduit in terms
of the investigation between the United Kingdom, the Netherlands,
France, Belgium and Germany with exchange of real-time intelligence.
This operation resulted in multiple arrests and convictions and
the dismantling of an organised immigration crime network right
across Europe. That is a recent example. Also, for example, we
are tasked with leading on Article 40 cross-border surveillance
work under the Schengen arrangement. One of the operations we
did recently was an operation called Flamage, which is an ongoing
operation involving the smuggling of Class A drugs through Europe
into the UK. So far we have facilitated numerous outbound Article
40 requests for international surveillance of the main targets
in Holland and Spain. So far intelligence we have got from the
surveillance has led to the seizure of 50 kilos of cocaine and
arrests in the United Kingdom, and it is an ongoing operation
which we are still working on with Spanish and Dutch colleagues.
| 
