THE BIZARRE GUIDELINES OF THE INDEPENDENT POLICE COMPLAINTS COMMISSION

 

02. Apr. 2010. – 18:19:45

The Police are always open to criticism not necessarily because their speech or actions or any contact with the public is against any sort of regulation or law but because they are police officers per se; they have such powers over the citizen that many people involved in some aspect of the legal system would have some difficulty some of the time over some possible infraction of that law. That said they also have to tread carefully in the dispensing of said powers.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is a Quango of the premier division of quangos. Its investigations have led to many police officers having to face the music of one sort or another. Therefore in my opinion it behoves that organisation to do its utmost to retain the respect of all parties; police and citizen. Recent news leads me to think that in bending over backwards to be seen as so totally non partisan and politically so correct its contortions have led to its head being somewhat up its rear. In new guidance to police it states that, "even if the complaint seems to be bizarre, implausible or intrinsically without foundation it should still be investigated and recorded"  and continues "The mere fact that a person has been diagnosed as having a mental illness or learning disability does not mean that he or she will lack capacity to make a complaint against police."

Not surprisingly this has not been greeted with joyous rapture by those blue uniformed guys `n gals who have frequent encounters with those, who, quite frankly, until the 1980s were kept under close care in large locked buildings for their own good as well as ours those buildings now often re-developed as luxury flats.

Not surprisingly this has not been greeted with joyous rapture by those blue uniformed guys `n gals who have frequent encounters with those, who, quite frankly, until the 1980s were kept under close care in large locked buildings for their own good as well as ours those buildings now often re-developed as luxury flats.

The guidance includes the following, "The Police Reform Act does not permit an appropriate authority to decline to record a complaint simply because it appears bizarre, implausible or intrinsically without foundation."

I leave it the imagination of readers to muse on what form a bizarre and/or implausible complaint could take......flying saucer disturbed the daffodils perhaps or Boris Johnson ate my hamster...............