Complaints Log
Complaints that I sent over a period of nine months to Sussex police officers, to the Sussex Police Authority, and to the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department having had little effect, and in particular, repeated requests for me to be sent copies of the tapes recorded at my police interview on August 12th 2004 having been rejected or ignored, on 10th May 2005 I wrote to the relevant division of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary complaining of the "lousy" quality of policing in my area.
Subsequently I received a quick response from the police. I was telephoned by a case worker who visited me on 26th May to spend about two hours making notes on my complaints for Detective Inspector Preddy, who had been appointed as the investigating officer for my complaints.
16th June 2005: I was sent my "Witness Statement" for me to review. This was the case worker's version of my complaints typed on to an ordinary witness statement form, and consisted of three parts: a list of "specific officers I wish to complain about"; a list of complaints; and outlines of the circumstances from which each of my complaints arose. As the form had been emailed to me, I was able to substitute my own version of the text for that in the draft that I had received, increasing the list of officers about which I wished to complain from three to eight. My complaints 9 and 10 (Inadequate provision for dealing with complaints and Shortcomings in record keeping) had been omitted, and I did not try to reinstate them, as I was told "that these are complaints against policy and not specific to misconduct by an individual officer. These issues will be subject to referral to Sussex Police Organisation and Development who have ownership of policy issues." I have yet to find how to do this.
22nd June: I emailed my own version of my Witness Statement to Sussex police.
23rd June: I was thanked for my "draft statement", and was told, "once I have discussed it [the statement] with D/Insp Preddy I will contact you in respect of signature." I have to sign to say that "This statement . . . is true to the best of my knowledge and belief", but why the signature comes after discussion I do not know.
30th June: I was emailed, " . . . we are aware of complaint, it has not been forgotten and will be receiving attention."
8th July: An email asked me to omit from my statement a complaint about the Chief Constable, because "My department deals with Police Misconduct issues which fall under Police Conduct Regulations 2004 . . . Your complaint against the Chief Constable Mr Jones is not a misconduct issue that fits within the Regulations and is a generalisation based upon your own experience and perception when having been in contact with members of the Sussex Police."
13th July: I was able to sign my Witness Statement, which should enable the police to properly consider my complaints over the next one hundred and twenty days, i.e. by 10th December 2005.
15th August: I received a letter dated 11th August from Detective Inspector Preddy of the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department saying that his role is limited to investigating "allegations of breaches of the Police Misconduct Code". When I asked where I could obtain a copy of this code, DI Preddy patronisingly said that I would not understand it as I am not a police officer, and sent me "a copy of the Police Misconduct Code in a simplified form." This actually comprises a "Code of Conduct" under twelve headings, beginning with "1. Honesty and integrity" and "2. Fairness and impartiality", and ending with "10, Sobriety", "11. Appearance", and "12. General conduct".
(P.S. I have since obtained a copy of "The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2004", and find that the document I was sent was not "simplified" at all: it is just an extract from the complete document.)
DI Preddy's letter continued, "I cannot investigate perceptional issues such as ‘wilful blindness’ or ‘gross prejudice’." As these are the most serious of the complaints I have about Sussex Police, I shall need to explore other ways of having those complaints properly examined. The letter also said that "this enquiry is likely to take around 120 days further to complete"; and as the letter is dated 11th August, the completion date is now reset to around 8th January 2006.
As the police are going to be very selective in their consideration of my complaints, I am publishing here the whole of the official document of complaint as signed by me and accepted by Detective Inspector Preddy's case worker. DI Preddy's letter asserts, "Your statement provides no evidence of breaches of the Misconduct Code concerning Inspector Brown and Chief Inspector Matthews". I nevertheless still believe that they are responsible for the lousy quality of policing in Wealden, for my arrest, for the destruction of some of my property, and for considerable expense on my part. Later, I will examine how far my complaints have been properly considered, and how far the police want to turn a blind eye to intolerable faults in a vital public service.
5th September: I wrote to the Chief Constable saying (1) I still want the tape recordings of my police interview, and (2) ‘I wish to know who else Sussex Police can depute to consider the "perceptional issues" that DI Preddy claims he cannot examine.’
14th September: It is now more than a week since my last letter should have arrived at Sussex Police Headquarters. It may yet be acknowledged or answered, or it may be filed away or binned unanswered like several other letters or emails that I sent to the local police and police authority.
I am publishing the latest letter here, and if it remains unanswered in a week's time I will be contacting the IPCC for the fourth time, and will be starting my own report
on Inspector Brown.
15th September: I received a brief response to my letter today, but it was from DI Preddy, who had been sent the letter "to deal with", which he did by ignoring the main points in my letter (see entry for 5th September). I spoke to DI Preddy on the telephone. He said that he would arrange for me to have copies of the tapes with his report, the completion date for which should be before January.
21st October: I received a letter from DI Preddy dated 19 October 2005. It contained the surprising assertion about the damage to a digital camera and two computers, "I have no evidence to prove that any damage was indeed caused". My reply included a few details of the evidence which was available to DI Preddy, twenty definitions of the word "evidence" in case DI Preddy was unsure of the meaning of the term, and the remark, "Your comment on evidence seems to me on a par with the assertion of PC Francis that the damage to my side gate was not evidence of forced entry onto my property by six people, three of whom, including an ex-policeman, assaulted me."
25th October: I received a letter dated 21st October from Chief Superintendent Pople of the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department. CS Pople's role was "to satisfy myself that the complaints have been properly investigated and to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to justify misconduct proceedings against any officer."
CS Pople's decision was based on documents written by policemen, my own statement of complaint, and "other documentation submitted with the file". The decision was, "Having examined the evidence I am satisfied that there is no realistic prospect that a tribunal would find that the conduct of the officers fell below the required standard in the circumstances. I conclude, therefore, that misconduct proceedings cannot be justified."
A copy of DI Preddy's report, entitled "Case Summary", was enclosed with CS Pople's letter. As the tapes (see entry for 15th September) did not accompany the report, I tried to telephone CS Pople, and told the machine which answered me of the omission.
A quick reading of DI Preddy's report suggests that it is characterised by the mixture of inaccuracy and gross bias that I have come to expect from Sussex Police. I shall be writing a detailed report on that report before long, and before referring matters yet again to the IPCC.
26th October: DI Preddy telephoned to say that the tapes were in the post. I told DI Preddy that I thought his report dishonest.
27th October: The two interview tapes which I have spent more than twelve months trying to get from the police arrived today, thanks to DI Preddy; no thanks to the police officers who failed to provide the tapes when asked for them - PC Francis, PI Brown, CI Matthews, and CC Jones.
7th November: After telephoning the Independent Police Complaints Commission this morning, at 10.33 a.m. I emailed an appeal to them against the outcome of DI Preddy's investigation.
9th November: Email from IPCC said, "Your email has been forwarded onto one of our casework departments who deal with all complaints, and appeals. Once allocated a caseworker will be in touch."
17th November: I was able to email the Customer Services Team at the IPCC to say that "I have now completed what should be the last page on my website for the time being."
18th November: I received a response to my application of 7th November in a letter from an IPCC casework manager dated 17 November which said that the IPCC "will be writing to you about your application shortly".
4th December: There has been a lull since my last entry as, for the IPCC, "shortly" can mean more than a fortnight. My attempts to find out from the secretive police how and by whom one of my cameras was broken and both my computers were sabotaged have so far proved fruitless. The latest news I have on this - now getting quite old - is that my enquiries have been referred to the purblind DI Preddy, so I am starting a new page today to give an account of what has happened so far about my property.
17th December: A month on from the IPCC's letter saying I would hear from them "shortly" seems an appropriate time to log the substance of my correspondence with the IPCC. Their letter had said, "If you have any further information or documentation in support of your appeal, please send it into me as soon as possible", and had told me, in bold type, "Please note that the decision made by the IPCC about your appeal is final". My emailed answer said that I did not think it wise to send the hundreds of relevant documents in my possession, but I offered to send any that were important in relation to a particular point; I also offered to write a one-page summary of the circumstances which led to my appeal; and I pointed out the most important pages on my website. I added that I took it that the warning about the finality of my appeal applied only to the IPCC. The email remains unanswered and unacknowledged, but as it was not returned to me, I presume that it arrived safely.
On 2nd November the custodian of the police property store wrote that she had forwarded my letter requesting information to DI Preddy; and on the same day the local high-tech crime unit said that they had referred my request to them for information to DI Preddy. Having heard nothing more in response to my request in the ensuing month, I added another page to this website and emailed the IPCC casework manager on 6th December to inform her of this new document "about my attempts to find out how my camera was damaged and how my computers were sabotaged." No acknowledgement or response from there as yet.
1st January 2006: The start of a new year is a time to take stock. The IPCC casework manager who said on 17th November that she would be writing to me about my application "shortly" will presumably be in touch with me before long. On the other hand, the member of the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department who early in November was sent my enquiries about what had happened to my cameras and computers has not responded to those enquiries, and in view of the way DI Preddy's report on my complaints about Sussex Police revealed the astonishingly low Standards to which Sussex Police can sink, I do not anticipate receiving any information from the police about what happened to my property. My local police seem to put self-service before public service, and will probably not divulge any information unless they are forced to do so. One consequence of this was that last Thursday I borrowed from a local library Graeme McLagan's Bent Coppers (revised edition 2004), which told me much that I did not know about the police force to which my neighbour Mabry used to belong.
This book should enlighten anyone who takes their view of the police from the policeman as hero stories in local papers, or police officer as a symbol of right in shots of crime scenes on television news. The epigraph to the prologue quotes evidence given on 4th December 1997 to the Home Affairs Select Committee of Parliament by Sir Paul Condon, Metropolitan Police Commissioner:
"I do have a minority of officers who are corrupt, dishonest and unethical. We believe, sadly, that they commit crimes, they neutralise evidence in important cases and they betray police operations and techniques to criminals."
The book tells how corrupt practices "ranged from criminals paying money to police for favours, such as obtaining bail or having the prosecution case against them watered down, through to the planting of evidence, ‘fit-ups’ and the straightforward stealing by detectives of cash or drugs, sometimes both."
"By 1998 . . . the Met realised that it faced whole networks of corrupt detectives and former officers." (p. 382)
The problem was so serious that "By the end of 1998 there were more than 250 officers actively engaged in investigating corruption, making it the biggest single squad of detectives in the Metropolitan Police." (p. 169)
I was interested to see that on two occasions the book endorses my own feeling that the courts tend to favour the police.
On page 2 Graeme McLagan attributes to Scotland Yard's Complaints Investigation Branch the opinion that "It was difficult to get enough evidence that would stick in court, where juries were notorious for giving police officers in the dock the benefit of the doubt," and on page187, he says that senior Met officers "recognised that corruption was a serious problem but . . . were also arguing that it could not be dealt with satisfactorily through the courts, where juries tended to give the benefit of the doubt to police officers."
This makes it imperative that whenever possible dishonesty and malpractice should be dealt with by the police themselves. Complaints from the public are an important source of information in uncovering and dealing with such behaviour; but in my experience Sussex Police either try to ignore complaints, or compound the dishonesty by adding to it.
17th January: I telephoned the IPCC casework manager who is dealing with my complaints about Sussex Police, and found that enquiries are ongoing.
18th January: Wanting to try under the Freedom of Information Act to get copies of unfavourable comments about me in police records, I accessed a Sussex Police Information Centre website which claimed to have been updated 14/04/05. Nevertheless it referred to the FOI Act in the future: it "will come into effect on 1st January 2005". A link which was supposed to allow me to apply for information failed to work on several occasions, and when eventually it did work I filled in a form, which when submitted only resulted in an error message. Fortunately an email address for the information officer was provided, so I used that to send my message.
19th January: The reply was commendably prompt, but disappointing in substance: the FOI Act "does not apply to personal data". I might for £10 be able to obtain information under the Data Protection Act, but a previous experience of the Act is not encouraging: when someone not long ago used my bank account to pay for their TV licence, I was not allowed to know who was responsible, but was told that the police would help me. This proved not to be the case.
Neither were numerous other attempts to obtain information from Sussex Police successful.
The Data Protection Act has the backing of the law, though it might of course need very much more than £10 to see that the requirements of the law are complied with by the police. What does the Act say?
The Data Protection Act 1998 Chapter 29 Part II 7(1) declares that "an individual is
entitled . . . (c) to have communicated to him in an intelligible form-
(i) the information constituting any personal data of which that individual is the data subject, and
(ii) any information available to the data controller as to the source of those data."
So far so good: I am a data subject, and entitled to know about the data of which I am the subject. But there are of course conditions which need to be satisfied before data can be disclosed:
"(4) Where a data controller cannot comply with the request without disclosing information relating to another individual who can be identified from that information, he is not obliged to comply with the request unless-
(a) the other individual has consented to the disclosure of the information to the person making the request, or
(b) it is reasonable in all the circumstances to comply with the request without the consent of the other individual."
I don't think that I need to read any further. If a dishonest police officer - PC Francis - has said that he has recorded that I am responsible for an affray, I would only be allowed to know if there is an official record of that untruth if the police officer agrees to the disclosure, or if it is deemed "reasonable in all circumstances" to provide the information without his consent. My experience of Sussex Police PSD suggests that circumstances could easily be found to make disclosure unreasonable - they must for instance have regard to "any express refusal of
consent by the other individual" - and that I should not waste my time in pursuing the matter through the Data Protection Act.
Instead I will create a web page detailing lies evidently recorded about me by Sussex Police, and the circumstances and individuals responsible for the lies being created.
April 12th 2006: It is now nearly five months since I was told by the IPCC that I would hear from them about their response to my complaints "shortly", and having learned since only that their reponse will have to be referred to a commissioner, I have to consider what further action I can take myself if I am not entirely satisfied with what ensues.
Today, having found that the Sussex Police Authority has a Complaints Committee that examines complaints registers, and knowing that the IPCC claims that "If a police force does not record your complaint it has to give you reasons for not doing so", I emailed Sussex Police to ask which of my complaints had been officially registered. When the reply was that for £10, I could make a ‘subject access’ request under the Data Protection Act 1998 to see if the police were willing to provide me with the information for which I was asking, I referred the matter to the IPCC.
P.S. According to the websites of the IPCC and of the Sussex Police, the situation now is, "all complaints, by law, must be recorded by the police force itself."
April 19th: I received an answer from the IPCC today, from a case worker to whom my case had been passed by the case worker who wrote to me on 17th November saying that she was in charge of my case. The new case worker informed me that I am entitled to access my own personal details under the Data Protection Act, and that Sussex Police can charge me a fee for my application, because "Whether or not a police force applies that fee does not fall within the IPCC's remit".
April 20th: I sent off an application form to Sussex Police requesting the following information:
1. I am principally interested in knowing which of my complaints about Sussex Police have been officially recorded in the complaints registers available to the Sussex Police Authority's Complaints Committee, and the exact wording of those records.
2. I would also like to know
(a) whether it is recorded that I was involved in an “altercation” (referring to 23 March 2002, when I was assaulted by an ex-policeman named Mabry, my next door neighbour);
(b) whether it is recorded that I had been responsible for an ‘affray‘ (on 24th July 2004, after my side gate was smashed open and I was assaulted by three neighbours, including the ex-policeman); and
(c) whether it is recorded that I was cautioned (on 12th August 2004, by the dishonest PC Francis) for an offence with which I was charged.
May 30th: Having found from the PSD report on my complaints that "4 close neighbours provided statements of evidence" against me, and from the IPCC report that it was assumed that I knew that Mr Mabry had made a counter-allegation against me, which I did not, I wrote to the Chief Constable to complain that I had only been sent three of the four statements referred to by the PSD, and to ask that a copy of the fourth statement be sent to me as soon as practicable. I received a reply from the Executive Support Unit dated 1 June which said, "I will ensure that the matter you raised is looked at and that a full reply is sent to you as soon as possible."
June 5th: Today I received a reponse from Sussex Police Corporate Development Department to the form I sent on April 20th. The letter accompanying the data said, "the information the Chief Officer is required to supply under the provision of the Act, is enclosed." Only one item of the information for which I had asked was included, item 2(a). I will be examining the data which was enclosed on a separate page. I emailed the Chairman of the Sussex Police Authority Complaints Committee about the impossibility of finding out whether a complaint about the police had been registered. He did not reply himself, but referred my email to the Deputy Clerk, who claimed that Sussex Police Authority and Sussex Police have a robust system for monitoring complaints. I disagreed, quoting my conclusion on another page of this site that Sussex PSD are lousy and SPA ignorant.
June 25th: Today I wrote a letter (dated June 26th) to the Chief Constable to complain that Sussex Police had corruptly and dishonestly placed a record under my name in the Sussex Crime Reporting System which relied heavily on lies told to the police by ex-policeman Mabry, after the police had refused to record a statement by me about the assault on me by Mabry. I received an acknowledgement from the Registry Administrator on 29th June.
July 12th: I wrote to Sussex Police Data Protection Unit enclosing £10 and asking again whether a caution had been recorded against my name, and requesting a copy of the fourth witness statement recorded against me by Sussex Police.
July 13th: Today I wrote another letter to the Chief Constable to complain that Sussex Police placed a record under my name in the Sussex Crime Reporting System giving a thoroughly dishonest account of the assaults on me on 24/7/2004. My recent complaints to the Chief Constable are being recorded in more detail here.
August 20th 2006:The first of my three current complaints, involving a witness statement, having been rejected by the Professional Standards Department and the Data Protection Unit, I posted an appeal against the decisions to the IPCC on 18th August. Their acknowledgement was dated 22 August.
Also on 18th August the Eastbourne Herald published a letter from me headed "How the local police is rated". As finding the truth from Sussex Police and through the IPCC was proving very slow and difficult, I took other opportunities offered by the national press to comment on current events which involve the police.
When The Mail on Sunday revealed that "Nearly 1,500 innocent people have been wrongly branded as criminals by the Home Office", I added a brief note from my own experience to the list of online comments from readers:
"Who collects the data? If the police are involved, then they probably need to share the blame with the CRB [Criminal Records Bureau]. When I reported theft from my property and named a neighbour, the police misspelled his name. When I was providing data to a policeman typing data into a computer and pointed out a spelling error, he said it didn't matter and left the mistake on record."
On August 5th The Guardian published online an article by Benjamin Zephaniah about the death of his cousin while in police custody in Birmingham. The paper invited readers to comment. My contribution was as follows:
"Racist thuggery on the part of police officers is only the worst manifestation of a whole system in need of reform. My experience of Sussex police is that three constables and a sergeant that I have encountered have proved to be dishonest or corrupt, and their Professional Standards Department and the Independent Police Complaints Commission produced dishonest reports, ignoring evidence provided by me, when after much difficulty I managed, after contacting Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, to have my complaints addressed at all. My enquiries into the lousy quality of policing in my area of Sussex are ongoing at www.ggm11.plus.com"
When The Telegraph online on August 16th published a story (a version of which I shall be considering on the ACPO page) about the police wishing to dispense instant justice, equivalent to the ‘mythical clip around the ear from the local bobby’, I kept my comment brief:
"The many badly educated, poorly trained, and inadequately supervised police constables in this country already have far too much power, and some are dishonest as well. Giving such officers powers equivalent to an assault which could damage a person's hearing should be unthinkable. The police need to do more to earn respect."
August 30th 2006: My request for information about the recording of an unlawful caution by PC Francis (see July 12th note above) was today answered by a document I received from New Scotland Yard. According to the Home Office, a caution "will be recorded on the police database and may be considered in court if you are tried for another offence. The record will remain on the police database for five years along with photographs, fingerprints and any other samples taken at the time." The document from New Scotland Yard says, "From the personal details supplied in your request there is no information held about you in the Person Record category of the Police National Computer."
September 2nd 2006: Today I received a letter from Sussex PSD with a refusal to record my two complaints about dishonest criminal records or to do anything other than file them away, on the pretext that they were merely "a repeat of previous complaints". More details, including my referral of the matter to the IPCC, here.
Having after three weeks not had even an acknowledgement of the two appeals I had sent them, I telephoned the IPCC, and was told that my appeals had been received. So the IPCC had my appeal sent on the 20th August, and the two appeals I had sent on 2nd September. An acknowledgement of the receipt of the first of the three, from Imran Khan, Casework Administrator, said that the IPCC would be writing to me about my application "shortly".
On 13th October, I emailed the Home Secretary saying, "I wish to complain of dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC." I received a response dated 30 October from Sarah Muir of the Police Integrity Team advising me of the existence of the IPCC complaints process, which I could have discovered for myself had I not been misled by IPCC's practice of including in their letters to appellants, in bold type, a one-sentence paragraph saying "the decision made by the IPCC about your appeal is final".
November 2nd 2006: I emailed the IPCC to complain of "either dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC, or rejecting a complaint without advising the complainant of the decision." The IPCC Complaints Manager, Douglas Cleaver, acknowledged my complaint immediately.
November 14th 2006: I received the reply to my latest complaint. It starts, "I have considered the content of your email 2nd November 2006, and fail to find that your complaint is a conduct matter within the terms of my remit." This refers, however, not to the current complaint, but to my dissatisfaction with the previous investigation by the IPCC. As regards dilatory practice, Mr Cleaver said, "I have been informed by casework that this matter is currently being processed and that you will be contacted in due course," and said he would forward my concerns about delay "to line management in casework for their information." So no complaints about the complaints department, who dealt with my complaint efficiently via email, and in a reasonable time.
November 30th It is six months since I sent the first of my three latest complaints to Sussex Police, and time to summarise progress so far.
30-05-06 I wrote to the Chief Constable, complaining that I had not been sent a copy of one of the four witness statements which had led to my arrest, and asking that the complaint be recorded and remedied.
26-06-06 I sent a letter to the Chief Constable to complain that Sussex Police had corruptly and dishonestly placed a record under my name in the Sussex Crime Reporting System which relied heavily on lies told to the police by ex-policeman Mabry.
04-07-05 Date of letter from PS Moloney of the PSD in answer to my letter of 30-05-06. He ignored my request that the complaint be recorded, and refused my request for a copy of the witness statement, though he did suggest that I contact the Data Protection Officer.
12-07-06 I wrote to Sussex Police Data Protection Unit enclosing £10 and requesting a copy of the fourth witness statement recorded against me by Sussex Police.
13-07-06 I wrote another letter to the Chief Constable to complain that Sussex Police had placed another thoroughly dishonest record under my name in the Sussex Crime Reporting System.
08-08-06 Date of reply to my letter of 12-07-06, refusing my request for a witness statement on the grounds that the police had a "duty of confidentiality and duty of care" towards the ex-policeman who had made the statement, though he had twice assaulted me, and subjected me to various forms of harassment for five and a half years.
18-08-06 I posted an appeal concerning the first complaint to the IPCC.
31-08-06 Date of a letter from Acting PI Moloney of the PSD with a refusal to record my two complaints about dishonest criminal records. I immediately sent appeals concerning both complaints to the IPCC.
13-10-06 I emailed the Home Secretary complaining of dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC.
30-10-06 Date of Home Office letter: "The matters raised in your letter should be directed to the IPCC and not the Home Office."
02-11-06 I emailed the IPCC to complain of "either dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC, or rejecting a complaint without advising the complainant of the decision."
14-11-06 I received an email from the IPCC complaints manager saying that the matter of my complaints "is currently being processed and that you will be contacted in due course."
March 26th 2007: I wrote to my M.P. again. My letter expressed dissatisfaction with dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC.
A postcard from the House of Commons arrived on 7th April: "Thank you for your communication of the 26.3.07 which will receive attention."
April 21st 2007: Today I completed a very amateurish video for YouTube, based on ‘Sussex by the Sea’, my version of the song including the line, "Some of our police are liars". The video can be accessed using this link.
With the aim of perhaps eventually reducing police dishonesty by a tiny fraction, I've also added myself and (23/04/07) the URL of this website to the MySpace website (www.myspace.com/178947581).
April 29th 2007: telegraph.co.uk published an article by the Home Secretary, and invited reader comments. The article starts:
David Cameron is fond of condemning the police for being the last great unreformed institution in this country.
In contrast I want to start by giving them credit where it's due. Last week the latest quarterly crime figures showed that crime has been reduced steadily over the past 10 years.
The British Crime Survey indicates that, overall, crime has fallen by 35 per cent since 1997, including a reduction in recorded violent crime.
The first paragraph of my brief offering was published, but the second paragraph - of more local interest - was edited out. The complete submission was as follows:
I am not going to waste my time examining this stuff in detail, but a quick check on a Home Office press release of 26/04/07 reveals, "Overall crime in England and Wales has remained stable according to British Crime Survey (BCS) interview data." A reading of Reid's first three paragraphs is sufficient to reveal the poor quality of his thinking. How can crime figures for three months show reductions over ten years? How can British Crime Survey statistics, based as far as I remember on questioning members of the public, "include" recorded crime figures, which are produced by the police?
The sort of puffing evident in Reid's remarks is also indulged in by Sussex Police, along with other more serious types of institutional dishonesty, as logged on my website, www.ggm11.plus.com
On 1st May, the Daily Mail online published an abridged extract from Littlejohn's Britain, recording examples of police stupidity. The paper invited reader comments. My submission was not published. It read:
An impressive catalogue of stupidity, but stupidity is less damaging to the public than the dishonesty of police officers, and of their seniors and the Independent Police Complaints Commission who defend them. I was assaulted twice by an ex-policeman. On each occasion the investigating officer filed a dishonest report in the police's official criminal records. Sussex Police refused to record my complaints about that dishonesty. I referred the complaints on to the IPCC eight months ago. I have yet to receive any response from them.
After the second assault I was arrested and had a digital camera broken and two computers sabotaged by the police, with the loss of hundreds of files. A website which was critical of the police was closed down by them.
May 7th 2007: Today I created a second video for YouTube, largely displaying still frames to accompany Part 1 of an account of events since I moved to my present address. It is available using this link.
May 9th: I recorded and uploaded to YouTube the second part of my autobiographical account of recent events.
May 11th: I recorded and uploaded to YouTube the concluding part of my autobiographical account of recent events.
May 12th 2007: Today I received a response to my letter of 26th March to my M.P., which expressed dissatisfaction with dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC. The letter, from the MP's PA, dated 11 May, was puzzling:
"As Gregory Barker is away from the office today, I am forwarding a copy of your letter to the Chief Constable, Ken Jones, for his immediate attention. As soon as Mr Barker has received a response, he will write to you again."
Jones left well over a year ago, and his successor presumably has little influence at the IPCC.
May 14th 2007: Anticipating little help from my representative in the House of Commons, I sent a letter to the IPCC saying that I was becoming increasingly angry about lack of progress with my complaints. The letter ended, "I hope to hear from you shortly". P.S. I didn't.
20th May 2007 I plan to assemble and upload my fifth video to YouTube today, an updated version of The Laughing Policeman.
May 25th 2007: As reported on another page, I received today a letter and brief report from the IPCC. A casework manager named Nick Broyd said that he had referred my "complaint" [there were actually three complaints] back to Sussex Police, "who will now seek to progress the complaint."
June 2007: Since then there have been complications. My letter of 26th March to my M.P. about dilatory practice on the part of the IPCC, which on 12th May I learned was being referred to the Chief Constable of Sussex Police, led to my receiving a letter from the MP's Constituency Manager dated 4 June enclosing a copy of a letter from the Chief Constable. The letter from the Constituency Manager said that a copy of the correspondence was being sent to the IPCC. The letter from the Chief Constable said, "Detective Inspector Richards, from our Professional Standards Department, has spoken to the IPCC and they confirm that as a result of Mr Maddens latest letter to them, Ms Claire Hogan, Senior Casework Manager, is reviewing his file."
On the last day of the month I received a brief letter from DI Brice of the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department. It referred to my letter to the Chief Constable of 26/06/06, which was about one of my three outstanding complaints about Sussex Police, and said, ". . . the issues you have raised will be subject to a request to the IPCC for dispensation on the grounds that the events you have complained of occurred more than twelve months earlier and also that it is repetitious as the matter was investigated in 2005 and found to be unsubstantiated."
The 2005 report by DI Preddy contained nothing whatever concerning the dishonest and corrupt entry in criminal records about the attack on me by an ex-policeman in 2002, although that assault had featured in the first complaint on the witness statement form which DI Preddy's report was supposed to be addressing.
7th July 2007 Today I received a letter from my MP's office dated 4 July. It contained a copy of a letter to the MP dated 11 June from Nicola Williams, a commissioner with the IPCC. This was stamped by the MP's office as received on 18 JUN 2007.
The letter from Ms Williams says, "We have spoken to Sussex Police and given that the complaints arise from events in 2004 and they have already been dealt with in a previous complaint, there is a strong prospect that Sussex will be making an application."
There is no evidence in the letter that Ms Williams knows anything whatever about my case from my own evidence, and that when she claims that my three most recent complaints "have already been dealt with in a previous complaint" she is doing anything other than parrot the lies of Sussex Police.
The time factor I shall be examining in detail. As Ms Williams said that the IPCC had told Sussex Police that they could "apply to the IPCC for a dispensation under grounds prescribed by the statutory framework of the Police Reform Act 2002", and as I have been unable to find any relevant prescriptive clause in the 2002 Act, I emailed the IPCC on 7th July saying, "I wish to know which clause or clauses of the Act the IPCC is relying on."
The response from the IPCC - prompt, informative, and mostly accurate - was as follows:
The relevant sections of legislation pertaining to ‘Dispensations’ are under The Police Reform Act 2002 are Schedule 3, paragraph 7
also, The Police ( Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2004, Regulation (2) http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20040643.htm#3
This enables me to go ahead with my study of the time factor.
13th July 2007 I wrote and uploaded two-thirds of the time factor page, and emailed the IPCC: "The IPCC have not told me whether I can object to Sussex Police being granted a dispensation to ignore complaints about malpractice, dishonesty, and corruption, but I am objecting anyway . . . Should the IPCC wish to take my views into account, they are published at www.ggm11.plus.com/time.htm"
14th July 2007 This morning I wrote and uploaded the rest of the time factor page. I also found that my YouTube videos had received more than eight hundred views, including over three hundred for the song about Sussex Police. The IPCC seem a rather intractable subject for a song if one thinks of Les Francs Juges as a theme tune, but Gilbert and Sullivan might provide the wherewithal.
August 13th 2007 Today I received a letter from the IPCC dated 7 August, though its A4 envelope had a 44p stamp. The letter was from Abiodun Soremekun, Casework Manager. Mr Soremekun was unaware that I had written to the IPCC on 13th July. His letter gave me seven days to object to investigation of my complaints being discontinued. I immediately telephoned Mr Soremekun, who invited me to send him a copy of my email of 13th July. That email was sent this morning.
August 15th 2007 Today I received an email from Mr Soremekun saying, "I will be granting the Sussex Police their request that your complaint should be dispensed with." So Sussex Police will not be required to investigate malpractice, dishonesty, and corruption within the force. I am publishing the IPCC's email here, and will be adding my comments on it soon, on the same page.
August 18th 2007 I completed brief comments on the IPCC's email on 16th August. The second paragraph of the report started, "The Sussex Police recorded your complaint . . . ." As that was news to me, I emailed Mr Soremekun on the 16th, "If you have the information about exactly what Sussex Police have recorded of my complaints in a register available to Sussex Police Authority, will you please let me know." A reply sent the same day assured me, "Please note that the Sussex Police ( or indeed any police force ) could only apply for a dispensation after a complaint has been recorded."
Wishing for more detail, today I delivered to Hailsham Police Station a £10 application under the Data Protection Act, which was worded as follows:
Request:
I sent complaints to the Chief Constable in letters dated 30th May, 26th June, and 13th July 2006. The first complaint was that I was not provided with a statement from a fourth close neighbour. The second and third complaints concerned dishonest records in the Sussex Crime Reporting System, about assaults on me on 23/3/2002 and 24/7/2004.
I wish to know if each of these three complaints has been recorded in a register of complaints made available to Sussex Police Authority, and the exact wording of any such entry or entries. If any or all of these complaints has or have not been recorded, I would like to have a positive statement of that fact.
September 2007 The IPCC is now the subject of two YouTube videos, accessible by typing ggm11 in the Search text box. These are called The Independent Police Counter-Complaints Commission and Recent Autobiography, the Sequel.
September 15th 2007 A letter arrived yesterday from Roger Brace of the Sussex Police Corporate Development Department Data Protection Unit. It said, "The enclosed document represents those complaints which have been recorded by our Professional Standards Department as at 24th August 2007." That document lists one complaint in 2002, five in 2006, and two in 2007. I will comment on the first six records at a later date.
My entry for August 18th quotes the person who granted the dispensation to Sussex Police as saying that the police "could only apply for a dispensation after a complaint has been recorded". I made three complaints. Only two were recorded. I emailed Mr Soremekun this morning:
"According to your message of August 16th, Sussex Police were not in a position to apply for a dispensation. Using the Data Protection Act, I obtained a list of complaints from me that have been recorded. I made three complaints. Only two were recorded for 2007:
"CO/327/07 - 27/06/2007 - Corrupt Practice - Dispensation by IPCC - 17/08/2007
CO/327/07 - 27/06/2007 - Corrupt Practice - Dispensation by IPCC - 17/08/2007
"Incidentally, my initial response to your granting of a dispensation is available at www.ggm11.plus.com/ipccmail.htm. Yesterday I started work on a new YouTube video, to be called "Sussex Police Hall of Shame". There will be a small annexe featuring you, Broyd, Jasper and Williams."
To be continued
