Home AffairsLetter from Deborah Glass, Deputy Chair, Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), 3 May 2013

I write further to my letter of 13 March 2013, in which I advised that I was awaiting a meeting with Chief Constable Creedon so that I could understand his terms of reference and consider the appropriate level of IPCC involvement in the various matters that have been referred to us under the MPS Operation Herne.

That meeting took place on 16 April, also attended by Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey from the MPS. One of the proposals from that meeting was that Mr Creedon would be drafting terms of reference setting out precisely the scope of Operation Herne, which is essentially a wide-ranging review into various aspects of undercover policing which may yet raise further conduct issues that require IPCC consideration, and its relationship with the specific investigations being supervised by the IPCC, which are “recordable conduct” investigations being carried out in accordance with the Police Reform Act 2002.

Each of the conduct investigations requires specific terms of reference and I have tasked investigators at the IPCC to review the ToR currently being used by the MPS before they are finalised. I expressly stated in the meeting, repeating what I said in my last letter to you, that the terms of reference for these investigations should be able to be shared with relevant interested persons and will expect this to happen. Once I am satisfied with these I will send you a copy.

Once you are aware of these your clients will no doubt wish to consider if they want to be formally interested persons for these investigations, in which case it would be the responsibility of the MPS to keep them informed.