Recording and Registering Complaints
The Independent Police Complaints Commission website starts its home page by saying, "The IPCC's job is to make sure that complaints against the police are dealt with effectively." If you click on the Complainants tab, and access 'What happens when I make a complaint?', you are informed, ". . . all complaints, by law, must be recorded by the police force itself." Three paragraphs later the IPCC contradicts itself by saying, "If the police force does not record your complaint it has to give you reasons for not doing so."
If you can find a page on the Sussex Police website headed 'Complaint procedures', you will find that Sussex Police quote the ". . . all complaints, by law, must be recorded by the police force itself" formula.
The Police Act 1996 stipulates the following:
69. - (1) If a chief officer of police determines that he is the appropriate authority in relation to a member of a police force-
(a) whose conduct is the subject of a complaint, and
(b) who is not a senior officer,
he shall record the complaint.
[Section 65: "senior officer" means a member of a police force holding a rank above that of superintendent ]
(2) After recording a complaint under subsection (1), the chief officer of police shall consider whether the complaint is suitable for informal resolution and may appoint a member of his force to assist him.
(3) A complaint is not suitable for informal resolution unless-
(a) the member of the public concerned gives his consent, and
(b) the chief officer of police is satisfied that the conduct complained of, even if proved, would not justify criminal or disciplinary proceedings.
69 (4) says that in a suitable case, the chief officer of police . . . shall seek to resolve it informally and may appoint a member of his force to do so on his behalf, and 69 (5) adds otherwise the chief officer of police . . . shall appoint a member of his own or some other force to investigate it formally.
Considering Sussex Police's methods of dealing with complaints in the light of the Section 69, it is clear that the force often ignores the law: some of my complaints have elicited no response whatever, others have been simply rejected, and I have never been asked whether I would consent to "informal resolution".
Whether many of my complaints have been recorded, and what "shall record" would involve exactly, is unclear.
The 1996 Act does not define the verb "record", so one can assume that it has the main current meaning, as defined in the latter part of the ninth entry for the word in the 1971 version of The Oxford English Dictionary: "to put or set down in writing; to put on record. Also, in recent use, of telegraphic or other instruments: To set down (a message, etc.) in some permanent form."
My complaints therefore should have been written or printed on paper, or saved as part of a computer file. In the context of the 1996 Act, the purpose of the recording seems to be in order that the complaint may be dealt with either informally or formally, and no more than that.
On the Sussex Police Authority homepage we are told, "Sussex Police Authority is an independent body which oversees Sussex Police."
On its "What We Do" page, it says that its duties include "Overseeing the process of complaints against police officers and discipline of senior officers."
The current meaning of the verb "oversee" is "officially supervise (workers, work, etc.); superintend" [SOED]. It may be that an obsolete meaning is also relevant: "fail or omit to see, overlook; disregard".
On its "Committees" page, the Authority lists two of its duties as:
" • To undertake the Authority's responsibilities under s.77 of the Police Act 1996 to keep itself informed as to the manner in which complaints from members of the public against members of the Force are dealt with by the Chief Constable.
" • To inspect the record of complaints and completed action taken upon hem."
Section 77 of the 1996 Act says, "77. Every police authority in carrying out its duty with respect to the maintenance of an efficient and effective police force . . . shall keep themselves informed as to the working of sections 67 to 76 in relation to the force."
Sections 67 to 76 do not use the phrase "record of complaints", and there is no stipulation that every record made under Section 69 is to be added to a "record" [singular noun for a plural entity] which is to be made available to the relevant police authority.
On 26th June 2006 and again on 13th July I wrote to the Chief Constable:
"I have a complaint which I would like recorded immediately in a register of complaints available to the Sussex Police Authority . . . ."
In each case a two-sentence reply acknowledged my request and said, "I will ensure the matter you raise is looked at and a full reply sent to you as soon as possible." The second letter was dated 17 July. Today is 26 August, and I still await the full replies. The letters were signed by Mrs E. Wiseman, who, I learned, is the Registry Administrator - Executive Support Unit.
So Sussex Police have a Registry Administrator, and it could be that she is responsible for the production of the register or registers of complaints that are examined by the Complaints Committee of the Sussex Police Authority in order to fulfil their duty under Section 77 of the Police Act.
Presumably, when a complaint is entered in the Registry, it is registered. Presumably, when a complaint is registered, it is recorded. Whether this recording would be identical to the recording specified in Section 69 of the Police Act, I have been unable to discover.
On September 2nd, I received a letter from Acting Inspector Moloney of Sussex PSD with a refusal to record my two complaints about dishonest criminal records, involving corrupt police officers, or to do anything other than file them away. I immediately referred
September 15th 2007 On May 25th 2007 I received a letter and brief report from the IPCC. A casework manager called Broyd stated: "I have upheld your appeal and agree that it should be recorded as a complaint." The IPCC also told Sussex Police that they could apply to the IPCC for a dispensation to free them from the necessity of investigating my "complaint". The police applied for a dispensation, though they did not in law qualify for it, and the IPCC granted the dispensation, though according to the law they should not have done so. Moreover, according to the IPCC, Sussex Police had to record a complaint before applying for a dispensation. Yesterday, I received the results from an application under the Data Protection Act to find out which of my complaints had been recorded. Only two of the three are on the database, so the IPCC had no right anyway to grant a dispensation freeing Sussex Police from investigation of a complaint that I had not been allowed to see a witness statement which had led to my arrest and the destruction of my property.
The few very brief records of my complaints found on the police database will be subjected to detailed comment at a later date.
Using the Data Protection Act, on April 20th 2006 I sent off an application form to Sussex Police which began, "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."
By that time I had sent three complaints via the Police Complaints Authority in 2002; an indeterminate number of complaints to the local police inspector (PI Brown), Sussex Police Authority, the local chief inspector (CI Matthews), and CC Edwards after my arrest in 2004; and eight complaints on an official witness statement form sent to DI Preddy in July 2005.
A letter dated 1 June 2006 from R Amos, Administrative Assistant in Sussex Police Data Protection Unit, was accompanied by photocopies of pages from the Crime Reporting System. My request for the text of recorded complaints, however, was not met, though the answer was revealing in its inadequacy. R Amos wrote:
"I have spoken to the Professional Standards Department who have informed me that you have made three complaints to them. One in 2002 and two in 2004, the nature and the results of those investigations were conveyed to you at the time."
In June and July 2006 I made three further complaints to the Chief Constable: that I had not been sent a copy of a witness statement which had led to my arrest, and that entries in the Crime Reporting System on assaults on me in 2002 and 2004 had been dishonest and corrupt.
When I learned that the Independent Police Complaints Commission were considering a dispensation to allow Sussex Police not to investigate my complaints, and that such a dispensation required inter alia that the police record my complaints, on August 18th 2007 I made a second attempt using the Data Protection Act to find which of my complaints had been officially 'registered' by Sussex Police. After giving details of my three complaints, I wrote, "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."
In reply, I received a letter from Roger Brace of the Data Protection Unit which said, "The enclosed document represents those complaints which have been recorded by our Professional Standards Department as at 24th August 2007." So the appended page purports to list all the complaints that I have made about Sussex Police, assuming that other departments do not hold lists in which my complaints appear. The following is a photocopy of the 'enclosed document':
I have already commented briefly on this document in a video on YouTube entitled The Sequel to the Sequel, but will examine it in more detail here.
According to Sussex Police, following an assault on me in March 2002, I only complained of police incivility. As the investigating officer refused to allow me to make and sign a statement about the attack, I complained to the Police Complaints Authority. The text of my complaint is published here. That somewhat discursive document can be summarised as containing three complaints: the investigating officer refused to allow me to make a statement; he refused to take account of previous harassment and threats of violence by the ex-policeman who had assaulted me; and - least important - his manner was rude and threatening. So Sussex Police only recorded by far the least important of the three complaints, and consider that it was "finalised" on 11/06/2002, which is not the case. Further evidence of that police officer's dishonesty came to light when, using the Data Protection Act, I obtained a copy of the dishonest record of the attack on me which had been entered in the Sussex Police Crime Reporting System.
In July 2004, the same ex-policeman and two of his friends assaulted me again. This happened in my back garden after the ex-policeman and five friends had smashed open my side gate to gain entry to my property. The investigating officer was another dishonest individual, PC Francis. After PC Francis arrested me, and seized my digital cameras and computers, I complained: (a) to the local inspector, PI Brown; (b) on the advice of the IPCC to the Sussex Police Authority, who sent complaints on the the local chief inspector, CI Matthews; to CI Matthews directly; to Sussex Police Professional Standards Department; and to Chief Constable Jones.
None of these complaints was registered.
It was only after I had complained to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary that Sussex Police did anything but ignore my complaints. In 2005 I was able to file eight complaints on a witness statement form, the text of which is available here. That document includes the following summary of my complaints:
My complaints comprise:
1. Wilful blindness on the part of Sussex Police
2. Gross prejudice on the part of the Sussex Police
3. Wrongful arrest
4. Neglect of proper procedures when I was in custody
5. Illegitimate use of a caution
6. Withholding of important evidence
7. Contravention of human rights
8. Negligence, incompetence and misuse of seized property.
Those eight complaints are represented in police records by the five entries dated 12/08/05. I leave the reader (if any) to judge the inadequacy of Sussex Police's record-keeping for himself or herself.
From reading reports on my complaints by the local PSD and the IPCC, I discovered that I had not been given a witness statement that had led to my arrest, presumably written by the ex-policeman who had been harassing me for five and a half years. I also discovered, using the Data Protection Act, that false records had been entered in the Crime Reporting System about the assaults on me in 2202 and 2004. These discoveries resulted in my sending three written complaints to the Chief Constable.
The IPCC granted Sussex Police a dispensation so that they would not need to investigate my complaints, even though the conditions for doing so had not been met. A dispensation can only be granted after a complaint has been registered. My complaint about not having been given a witness statement had not been registered, which a glance at the records dated 27/06/07 will confirm. The other reasons why the dispensation is part of a disgraceful and cynical cover-up by the IPCC have already been dealt with here and here, as well as on YouTube, so I do not need to repeat them in this document.
