Sunday 3 November 2013

0026 Daily Notes November 2013 Dramatic Plegate developments

After a late to bed I managed to get up and breakfasted in time for the Andrew Marr programme and which proved to one of the most remarkable and important of recent years.
It commenced with the dramatic news about Plebgate. I commented in my piece yesterday that I had been under the impression that the Home Affairs Committee had required the two Deputy Chief Constables and Assistant Chief Constable who had taken decisions after a meeting with no official minutes, to send in their notes and appear before them, there had been no further information and no meeting arranged, although the Committee had held a meeting during the week on the issue of Police Leadership and Standards which had been and remains ongoing.

One of the first items mentioned in the news at the start of the programme is that the Home Affairs Committee has issued its first report on the subject of Leadership and standards dealing exclusively with Plebgate and the three representatives of the Police Federation who had told the media the opposite of what had taken place at what was scheduled to have been a private meeting between the former Cabinet Minister and Chief Tory Party Whip Andrew Mitchell. While I will go through the short 20 page report as part of my more detailed review of this matter, I reproduce the summary of the findings now available on the House of Commons Committee site.

“ *The Home Affairs Committee has criticised the evidence given by both the officers subject to the disciplinary investigation and their Chief Constables. The individual officers gave evidence which the Committee found misleading, possibly deliberately so, and lacking in credibility. In the view of the Committee, the answers they gave were contradictory, inconsistent and provided little or no insight into their actions. The Committee has decided to recall Sergeant Jones and DS Hinton on Tuesday November 5th to apologise for misleading it and has reserved the right to recall Inspector MacKail should it be found that he too misled the Committee. The Committee has referred both DS Hinton and Sgt James to the IPCC.”

This is an unprecedented move given that the officers were warned about being in contempt of Parliament which means that if they fail to apologise and submit what the Committee to believe is a truthful and accurate account they could be directly imprisoned.

The Independent Police Complaints Committee has also immediately issued the following statement “
 
IPCC redetermines investigation into conduct of Police Federation representatives after a meeting with Andrew Mitchell MP Nov 3, 2013

Following evidence provided to the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC), the IPCC has identified procedural irregularities in the handling of the investigation by West Mercia Police into the conduct of Police Federation representatives after their meeting with Andrew Mitchell MP. This means that the investigation is not complete, there is no final report and decisions made are void.

As a result, the IPCC has redetermined the mode of investigation and has decided, given the public interest in this case, that it will carry out an independent investigation. The IPCC made this decision after reviewing evidence provided to the Committee. It is able to do this within current resources because of the thorough investigation carried out under its supervision, which established that this can be done separately from the major investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service into the events at Downing Street and its aftermath.

Deborah Glass, IPCC Deputy Chair said: “I made a statement on 15 October 2013 about the conduct of the Police Federation representatives of West Mercia, West Midlands and Warwickshire Police, who met Mr Mitchell at his constituency office in Sutton Coldfield on 12 October 2012.

“Since making this statement, evidence given to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 23 October 2013 revealed a number of procedural irregularities between the production of the draft and final West Mercia reports.
 
“On 12 August 2013, a final report was provided to the IPCC. It contained a single set of conclusions to the effect that no case to answer for misconduct was made out against any of the three officers under investigation.

“However, it is clear from CI Reakes-Williams’s evidence to the HASC that this conclusion did not reflect his opinion. His opinion was (and remains) that a case to answer for misconduct was made out. However, he mistakenly believed that his report should reflect the view of the “appropriate authorities” – the senior officers in each of the forces involved.
“The 'appropriate authorities' are the final decision-making bodies, and they are entitled to reach a different decision to the conclusions of the investigator. However, this is an entirely separate process. The procedure described above has conflated the two.

“As I said before the Home Affairs Select Committee, if the investigation was concluded, as I understood it to be when the final report was sent on 12 August, I would have no power to redetermine the mode of the investigation as to do so would be an abuse. What is now clear is that the final report I received did not contain the opinion of the investigating officer, but instead erroneously recorded the view of the appropriate authorities. Therefore, for the purposes of the legislation, I consider that in fact there is no final report. Consequently, the investigation is not complete and the decision making function of the appropriate authorities concerning whether the officers have a case to answer for misconduct is not yet engaged; the decisions they have purported to reach are void.

“I consider that to remedy the irregularities and conclude the investigation, a final report now needs to be produced that accords with the statutory regime.
“In light of the above, I am able to redetermine the mode of investigation. I have determined that a change in the mode of investigation is justified as it would be in the public interest to do so, not least because the catalogue of fundamental procedural irregularities is capable of significantly undermining public confidence in the final outcome of the investigation.
 
“The only mode of investigation that would satisfy the public interest and maintain confidence in the police oversight regime is an independent one, carried out by the IPCC’s own staff, and this is what will now take place.
 
“This decision should in no way be seen as a reflection on the work done by the appointed investigating officer from West Mercia Constabulary, Chief Inspector Reakes-Williams, who in my view carried out a thorough investigation notwithstanding the irregularities which arose at the end of it, and who has demonstrated his integrity in the conduct of that investigation and in his evidence to the Committee. Nor should it be taken to be a reflection on the integrity of any of the appropriate authorities.

“In the interests of fairness to all parties, no-one involved in the original investigation will be involved in the independent investigation which will now take place.”
Notes to editors:
A video of Deborah Glass' statement is available at this link: http://youtu.be/3V9M2XISYqc.


Re-determining this to an independent investigation does not mean that the IPCC needs to reinvestigate the work already carried out by West Mercia Police. IPCC investigators will not duplicate any existing investigative work with which they are satisfied. Once the IPCC investigators are satisfied that the investigation was sufficiently robust and challenging they will produce a new report in accordance with the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2012.

Referenced evidence provided by CI Reakes-Williams can be found on HASC transcript p2 Q7. Background: The investigation was initially supervised by the IPCC to be consistent with a supervised investigation of the MPS into the Downing Street incident. This investigation sought to establish whether Police Federation representatives from West Mercia, West Midlands and Warwickshire forces, provided false accounts of a meeting they held with Andrew Mitchell MP in October 2012 in order to discredit him. The investigation began in January 2013, was widened in March 2013 to include West Midlands and Warwickshire officers, and concluded in July 2013. The IPCC was provided with the report in August 2013.



What this means is that the IPCC will in effect produce a new report which reflects the original work of the statutory investigatory officer and then come to a decision about recommendations. It will come as no surprise in the circumstances if the report recommends that or one or more of the officers concerned should face a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct. It also should be appreciated that this deals with the original matter and not the referral from parliament that two of officers mislead the Committee, and possibly deliberately set out to mislead the Committee.
 
One must then ask how what this also means for the two deputies and assistant who attended the decision taking meeting and for their respective Chief Constables.

The Home Affairs Committee has also concluded as follows. “ The apologies given by Chief Constable Shaw (West Mercia), Sims (West Midlands) and Parker (Warwickshire) were welcomed by the Committee although the decision taken by Chief Constables Parker and Sims not to redetermine whether their officers should face a misconduct panel was criticised. Mr Parker has also been criticised for seeking to correct the evidence of DS Hinton in a manner which suggested that he lacked impartiality. Assistant Chief Constable Cann (West Midlands) has been criticised for attempting to access the final report of the misconduct investigation prior to it being signed off by the IPCC. The Committee regretted an absence of leadership by all three Chief Constables at a critical time which could have, if utilised earlier, prevented reputational damage to the police service. The Committee believes that the IPCC should have carried out an independent inquiry in this case although it recognises that resource constraints which would have prevented it for completing an investigation quickly were the main factor behind the decision not to do so. The Committee calls for further resources to be allocated to the IPCC so that cases which may impact on public confidence in policing can be investigated quickly and thoroughly by the IPCC. The Committee also emphasises that, despite its decision not to carry out an independent inquiry being regrettable, this in no way excuses the conduct of the three officers who met with Mr Mitchell or the failure of the three forces to have undertaken an investigation properly or in accordance with the applicable law.

It will be very interesting to learn if the Police Commissioners for the three forces take action in relation the senior officers now criticised in this report.

The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee the Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP, Chairman of the Committee said:
“We were appalled by the evidence given by DS Hinton, Sgt Jones and Inspector MacKaill. It is now clear that DS Hinton and Sgt Jones misled the Committee, possibly deliberately. We have recalled them to correct the record and if they do not, they will be in prima facie contempt of Parliament.

We are also concerned that the Chief Constables of Warwickshire and West Midlands have not re-determined their conclusions to this investigation. This matter has been hugely damaging to the public’s perception of the reputation of the police officers involved, the Police Federation and the force itself.

We have referred the Police Officers to the IPCC and we welcome their announcement to make a fully independent decision on this investigation which is what we asked them to consider. It is vital that the public see that where police officers make mistakes, they will be held to account. Only then will we be able to focus on the outstanding work done by our police forces.

He added
The narrative of what we have seen could rival any great work of fiction. At every point and at every level, instead of being transparent, we have uncovered a process that obstructs the truth. If this can happen to a Cabinet Minister, what hope is there for anyone else?”


In a separate announcement the five police officers and three civilians on bail in relation to the investigation that they conspired to effectively bring down Mr Mitchell have been told they will return to court re their bail later this month.



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