Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
45-59)
MR MIKE
FULLER
12 JANUARY 2010
Q45 Chairman: Before the session begins
I would just point out that Mr Hogg is a practising barrister
and that is a relevant interest for today. Mr Fuller, you are
the Chief Constable of Kent.
Mr Fuller: Yes, that is right.
Q46 Chairman: You are the preferred
candidate for the HM Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution
service.
Mr Fuller: Yes, that is right,
Chairman.
Q47 Chairman: We welcome you. You
have said some very interesting things about inspection in the
past. At Kent Police you said: "There's always somebody inspecting
us, or we're under the threat of inspection. It is a constant
inspection process. Probably at least a third of my time is spent
dealing with inspection, inspection processes, preparing for inspection,
accounting to inspection bodies." Some of these bodies, you
pointed out, as we well know, make contradictory recommendations.
Are you about to inflict all that on the Crown Prosecution Service?
Mr Fuller: Obviously not, having
been on the receiving end. I think I ought to set the context
in which that comment was made. This was quite a wide-ranging
interview with a Guardian journalist where he asked how
many inspectorates actually inspected the police, and there are
11, which is not just the Police Inspectorate, we also have the
Audit Commission, Health and Safety, the National Police Improvement
Agency, the Independent Police Complaints Commission that inspects
certain aspects of police work. We have even invited the RSPCA
to inspect our police dog kennels. As you can imagine, we are
under a lot of critical and close scrutiny, which I think is right.
Where I was frustrated was when we gave the same information to
different inspecting bodies. I have often said, "Why do you
not just keep that information centrally and share it?" That
is not done, it is often collected individually by these agencies.
It becomes very frustrating when conflicting recommendations are
made and they are not costed. That is something I would look to
avoid doing. I should say at the outset that I think inspection
is important. It brings accountability, it enables the identification
and sharing of best practice. I feel it should drive performance
and obviously identify under-performance as well. During my career
I have served as a Superintendent within the Police Inspectorate
and I very much believe in it, it is very important in terms of
accountability.
Q48 Chairman: So you were seconded
to the Police Inspectorate?
Mr Fuller: Yes, as a Superintendent.
I spent two years within the Police Inspectorate as a Superintendent.
I was a specialist staff officer, an adviser to the Chief Inspector
of the Police Inspectorate, during which time I gave advice to
ministers and home secretaries on crime and terrorism related
to policing.
Q49 Alun Michael: What has been your
experience of the quality of the work and operations and also
the decision-making of the Crown Prosecution Service during your
career?
Mr Fuller: You will know that
I have got 31 years' police experience and much of that experience
has been as an investigator, albeit I have virtually interchanged.
By "interchange", I mean I have been in a uniformed
policing role and then gone on to detective roles throughout my
service. It is quite an unusual career profile, doing both, but
I have chosen to do that. Certainly it was not the fastest way
to get to Chief Constable but made the whole career enjoyable.
In following that career path I have worked very closely particularly
with chief crown prosecutors on some very high profile prosecutions,
such as the Jill Dando murder investigation. In Kent we had the
Securitas investigation. I personally started the investigation
and set up the investigation team and am still working very closely
with the chief crown prosecutor. I do not think it would surprise
you that I have always had very good relations. Clarity of role
is really important in that I have been clear that my role is
that of the investigator and the crown prosecutor makes the decision
as to prosecution on sufficiency of evidence.
Q50 Alun Michael: That is a very
professional answer, but I asked what your experience was of the
quality of the operations and decision-making of the Service.
Mr Fuller: It has been very good,
very positive. On all the high profile investigations and cases
that I have been involved in we have been successful in securing
convictions. That is not the end in itself, it is about justice,
but we have been successful. We have not had any high profile
prosecutions fail but if we had it would have been very costly
and a huge waste of resources. I have chosen to work very closely
with the chief crown prosecutors and there have been huge benefits
in the relationship as a result.
Q51 Alun Michael: You referred to
your relationship particularly with the chief crown prosecutors,
but what are the relations like between the police and the Crown
Prosecution Service generally in Kent?
Mr Fuller: In Kent in particular,
certainly when I started there, which was about six years ago,
relations were quite distant. One of the things that I did was
co-located the crown prosecutors within police stations and that
went a long way to improving relationships between the prosecutors
and the police officers.
Q52 Alun Michael: Is that still going
on because there are some places where that happened and then
they were withdrawn from police stations?
Mr Fuller: Yes, that has happened.
The answer to your question is yes, it is still going on certainly
within Kent. There are enormous benefits in being able to seek
advice face-to-face but clearly that is quite resource intensive
for the Crown Prosecution Service. I am aware that in other police
areas that has been withdrawn.
Q53 Alun Michael: We have looked
at things like the purpose of the criminal justice system and
various bits of it, including the Crown Prosecution Service in
recent times.
Mr Fuller: Yes.
Q54 Alun Michael: What do you see
as the purpose of the criminal justice system as a whole and the
specific purpose of the Crown Prosecution Service in contributing
to the work of the criminal justice system as a whole?
Mr Fuller: That is a big question.
I am mindful of what the Justice Committee said on this. For me
it is about delivering justice, so if there is not sufficient
evidence to prosecute somebody it is important that they are not
prosecuted and we do not waste resources. At the end of the day
we seek to deliver justice. As a cop, when I first started I would
have said it was getting people convicted but you cannot do that
at all costs, there needs to be due process. Nobody wants wrongful
convictions, but we also do not want the guilty people to go free
through want of efficiency or want of preparation. For me, it
is about delivering justice and ensuring that those people and
organisations within the system recognise the fact that they are
interdependent and have got to work together to secure efficient
delivery of justice.
Q55 Alun Michael: We sometimes hear
about things going wrong because police officers perhaps who are
preparing for a case have not listened to the advice from the
Crown Prosecution Service. In the Inspectorate role, what would
you want to be pushing in terms of that relationship?
Mr Fuller: I would expect the
investigators clearly to listen to advice. As you can imagine,
over 30 years a lot of my experience has been supervising investigators
and police officers and the training of them. I would be very
concerned and would see the officers as neglectful if they ignored
the advice of a prosecutor. Clearly the prosecutors cannot direct
the police as to the course of the investigation, but the general
tendency has been to seek early advice when investigations start
so that you effectively have a cradle to grave process. I will
give you an example in the Securitas investigation. On the day
that happened I was setting up the investigation team, I contacted
the chief crown prosecutor for Kent and outlined how I proposed
to investigate it and sought advice as to whether the chief crown
prosecutor thought that was a sound way forward because ultimately
she was going to be involved in prosecuting the case. Within two
weeks, bearing in mind the investigation involved the theft of
£52 million from the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, we had
recovered £20 million in cash, we had arrested and charged
some 14 people with that crime and are still seeking the prosecution
of one other person in Morocco. The point is, the early involvement
and advice of the CPS was essential to the successful outcome
of that investigation.
Q56 Mr Hogg: Mr Fuller, firstly the
Chairman has reminded you, indeed everybody else, that I have
an interest to declare in that I am a practising member of the
Bar, including criminal cases. What I am going to ask you are
questions related to the propriety of selecting a chief constable
to this role. I hope you will not think that they are personal
to you; they are because of the nature of your past experience
rather than you as an individual.
Mr Fuller: Yes.
Q57 Mr Hogg: There are two areas
I would like to explore with you. Firstly, the extent to which
it is appropriate to use a former chief constable in this role
and secondly, and quite differently, whether as a former police
officer you have the width of experience which enables you properly
to monitor the serious court presentational functions of the CPS.
You see there are two distinct questions here. May I take the
second one first and then go to the first one. In your early days
as a police officer, no doubt you will have presented cases.
Mr Fuller: Yes, before the inception
of the CPS.
Q58 Mr Hogg: In relatively recent
years you will have given evidence quite often being a senior
investigating officer?
Mr Fuller: Yes.
Q59 Mr Hogg: Of course, you have
very limited experience—this is not a personal criticism—of
the presentation, the advocacy roles and this and that required
by the Crown Prosecution Service in the presentation of cases
in court.
Mr Fuller: I think I would like
to answer this question in two ways. Firstly, as somebody who
has worked within the system for 31 years I know the rubbing points.
I have mainly worked in high profile prosecutions, and we are
talking about high level investigations of serious and organised
crime, and that has meant greater complexity and closer working
with lawyers involved in those prosecutions. I think that is important.
A lot of the skills and knowledge I had not appreciated that I
had retained. I only did my Bar training very recently as a Chief
Constable and was called two years ago, but I received an "outstanding"
grade in my advocacy assessment. I have got the personal skills
and knowledge that you would not normally have as a chief constable.
Most chief constables would not choose to undertake those studies.
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