October 2024: Impunity for officers
The outcomes of high profile cases add to a growing corpus of documented struggles for justice in this Black History Month
Dear StopWatchers,
This month has been a truly horrific one in policing news. From sexual offences and sexual harassment of police colleagues; excessive use of force; corruption charges; inadequate support for vulnerable groups; and an officer’s attempted murder of his wife; to the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn child in a police collision, it’s no surprise to discover that the Met alone has paid £7.6 million in police settlements over misconduct cases. We also pause to reflect on the verdicts passed in the high profile cases of Bianca Williams and Ricardo Dos Santos, and Chris Kaba.
In StopWatch news, we held our Section 60, 30 years on event, kindly hosted by the Centre for Justice Reform at City University, (watch out for our report challenging the existence of section 60 on human rights grounds, coming soon). At the event our panellists and attendees discussed scrapping section 60 as it persistently violates people’s human rights, especially of those from racialised communities who are overpoliced and underprotected. Thank you to everyone who made it!
On the same day, one of our team spoke on the panel for The Bristol Cable’s No to Section 60 event, examining the long-term impact of suspicionless searches on the mental and physical health of those subjected to them.
StopWatch’s executive director Habib Kadiri was also invited to speak on The Bristol Cable’s People Just Do Something podcast about stop and search, and at the annual National Black Police Association conference amidst a standoff with police chiefs over the Police Race Action plan.
Also, we are thrilled to have launched our Out of order report highlighting the proliferation of civil orders in the past decade and the creeping in of additional stop and search powers.
Impunity for officers
By now we have all heard the not guilty verdict for Martyn Blake, the Metropolitan police officer who shot Chris Kaba dead on September 2022. Chris was unarmed with his hands clearly visible on the steering wheel. The car Chris was driving was stationary, blocked from behind by a police vehicle, and no officers were near the car (INQUEST, 21 Oct). The officers involved also did not know that it was Chris driving the car. Martyn Blake shot Chris in the head within seconds after exiting his vehicle.
Sheeda Queen, Chris Kaba’s cousin, said of the verdict:
Are we surprised, though?… So shameful, right, that we’re not surprised that the verdict came back not guilty, right, in a matter of hours?... My uncle looked like his soul left his body. He couldn’t talk, could hardly walk.
- BBC Newsnight, 23 Oct.
There have already been two deaths from police shootings and four during police pursuits this year as part of the overall 24 deaths in and following police custody in 2023-2024. If the past decade is anything to go by, there is good reason to suspect that there will be more. Yet, no officer has ‘ever been convicted of murdering a member of the public while on duty’, according Dr Tara Lai Quinlan, Associate Professor in Law and Criminal Justice (The Conversation, 29 Oct).
While we are floored by the ruling, those in support of Mr Blake are outraged that the officer was questioned on his conduct at all. That one of Blake’s fellow officers proclaimed that ‘At no point was there any evidence that [Mr Blake] had done anything wrong’ (Harwich and Manning Street Standard, via PA Agency, 22 Oct) continues to signal the culture of impunity which is ripe among officers.
Mr Blake’s immediate reinstatement and requirement for refresher training before operational deployment (The Independent, 22 Oct) only re-affirms suspicions about the police’s proclaimed commitment to accountability, the lack of which is precisely the crux of the wheel rotating this cycle of police violence. And although the Independent Office for Police Accountability (IOPC) has launched an investigation into Martyn Blake, it is hard to believe that it will result in a different outcome.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has already called on the government to make charging officers who use force as part of their duties even harder (The Guardian, 22 Oct), and despite gestures towards reviving an accountability review into the prosecution of officers (The Telegraph, 23 Oct), the intentions of the government indicate a willingness to take the NPCC’s demands seriously. Home secretary Yvette Cooper duly announced that there will be ‘a presumption of anonymity’ in the rare instances' in England and Wales when police firearms officers face criminal charges and trial, ‘up to the point of conviction’ (Justice Gap, 25 Oct). The implied insistence on judges not to make exceptions to this rule (which is why Martyn Blake was named in the first place) presents a potential double standard of immunity that is hard to swallow so soon after the verdict.
It is imperative that the upcoming reforms under the accountability review push for higher standards for holding specialist officers to account. At the very least, the review should maintain the current threshold on lethal use of force, requiring that officers only resort to it when ‘absolutely necessary’. However, to truly act in the interest of safeguarding the public, the review must go so much further when consolidating the legal test against which officers will be held during misconduct proceedings on use of force. Done correctly, this review may prove critical to reshaping policing going forward.
In other words, to quote MP Diane Abbott to Yvette Cooper in the parliamentary debate on police accountability:
So does the home secretary accept that nothing could be more damaging for police community relations than if the idea took hold that in some way the police were above the law?
- Hansard, 23 Oct).
Only the beginning of this month we bore witness to the veracity of Diane Abbott’s point following the miscarriage of justice in the case of Bianca Williams and Ricardo Dos Santos, who were stopped, searched and handcuffed while their three-month-old son was in the back of the car. Officers Jonathan Clapham and Sam Franks were initially dismissed for breaching professional standards after falsely claiming to smell cannabis (Bindmans, 04 Oct). This decision was overturned, allowing both officers to return to their posts (Independent, 04 Oct).
It has been a devastating month for justice. The outcomes of these cases expose systemic failures and a culture that often shields officers from accountability. These trials are stark reminders of how narratives are constructed to justify state-sanctioned violence and serve as a reminder of the ongoing battle faced by families seeking justice for loved ones lost to police violence. Above all else, we cannot let this grind us down. We must channel our legitimate rage into a rallying call for action, joining the critical work undertaken by friends and allies who refuse to step aside and turn a blind eye to police violence and misconduct.
Deaths from police contact, cases old and new
Andrew McCleary
An inquest has found that Andrew McCleary, a Black man, was unlawfully killed after being subjected to prolonged restraint by Bedfordshire police officers. The legislative criteria for restraint was not met and it was not possible to demonstrate that the legislative criteria was being applied correctly or at all. Andrew told officers several times that he could not breathe before suffering a cardiac arrest (INQUEST, 15 Oct).
Other news
Research: Suspicionless Stop and Search: You’re Joking, not Another one!: Dr Neil Parpworth describes the racially disproportionate use of section 60 and the emergence of section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023 (as modelled on s60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994), but with a wider option of ‘prohibited objects’ which can be sought, and how section 11 is used in the context of policing peaceful protests (SAGE Journals, 01 Oct).
Inspection into Essex police custody suites: HMICFRS raised concerns about Essex police’s handling of detainees in custody, particularly regarding their use of force. Issues include prolonged restraint times, certain control techniques, and instances of forcibly removing detainees' clothing. Children charged and detained overnight are rarely transferred to appropriate local authority accommodations. Detainees often face extended custody waiting periods for mental health assessments. Record-keeping is sometimes inadequate, with contradictory entries, and some staff do not consistently follow professional guidelines, with gaps in risk management not flagged by current dip-sampling methods (HMICFRS, 04 Oct).
17-year-old dies following Met police chase: A teenage passenger was one of three males hospitalised after a car crash on 9 October outside central Middlesex hospital in Harrow, London. The car, occupied by three men, was being pursued by a marked police car before it hit a curb and overturned. Of the other two occupants, one remains in critical condition, while the other is not believed to be seriously injured (The National, 07 Oct).
Ex-officer David Carrick charged with sexual offences: Carrick has been charged with five counts of indecent assault, two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. He has also been charged with one count of coercive and controlling behaviour. Criminal proceedings remain active (Crown Prosecution Service, 07 Oct).
Met police settlement amounts soar to £7.6m: After facing hundreds of officer misconduct allegation cases, the cost of settlements has more than doubled from £3.5 million to £7.6 million in the past year, over disputes involving the excessive use of force, false evidence, racially profiled individuals, and breaches of the European convention on human rights (Financial Times [£wall], 10 Oct).
Senior police bosses in Gloucestershire police suspended: Gloucestershire police deputy chief constable Shaun West is under criminal investigation for alleged assault and misconduct in public office. Chief constable Rod Hansen has been suspended and is under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct for alleged gross misconduct involving a staff member (ITV, 14 Oct).
Dorset police increase stop and search by 25%: Stop and search rates in Dorset have risen by 25% compared to the previous year, with over 60% of these searches yielding no results, according to a local councillor (Bournemouth One, 14 Oct).
Inspection of Hertfordshire constabulary: The inspection found some officers using handcuffs without justification during stop and searches. Some officers were found to use provocative language. Black people were stop and searched 3.4 times more often than white people. Outcomes were only linked in 26% of cases (HMICFRS, 16 Oct).
Police fail to support members of the public with low English proficiency: A recent study conducted through Freedom of Information requests by the Law Centres Network and Harrow Law Centre has found that forces have an inconsistent approach to supporting victims whose first language is not English, violating the Victims’ Code. A third of forces did not treat victim’s limited English proficiency as a vulnerability (Business Mole, 21 Oct).
Respect Orders soft-launched: Dame Diana Johnson has announced that Respect Orders will be introduced at the discretion of local authorities, allowing officers to ban adults engaged in ‘anti-social behaviour’ from public areas (Home Office, 22 Oct).
The government’s new policy package on police accountability: new legislation will be introduced which will automatically find officers to have committed gross misconduct if they are convicted of specific offences; officers will be presumed to be dismissed if found to have committed gross misconduct; introduce fast-track hearings for ex-officers; and grant forces the right to dismiss officers who cannot hold vetting (Home Office, 23 Oct).
Met’s live facial recognition tech is ineffective: In the first half of this year, the Met collected nearly 500 hours of surveillance footage and scanned approximately 160,000 faces, resulting in only 231 arrests. Across 79 live facial recognition deployments from January 1 to June 30, 2024, police stopped an individual on average every 55 minutes, with an arrest occurring every 128 minutes. Many of these arrests did not proceed to further action (hyphen, 23 Oct).
Humberside police leadership failure: Humberside Police Federation has expressed ‘significant concerns about the Humberside police executive leadership team’, which has allegedly been ‘openly dismissive of all concerns raised about the force by both Mr Cooke and the HMICFRS inspection report’ (Hull Live, 24 Oct). The HMICFRS report found the force ‘requires improvement’ in investigating crime, with only 11% of crimes brought to justice.
Appeal won for Black youth worker Tasered by Met: Edwin Afriyie, a Black youth worker who was shot with a Taser electrical weapon while standing with his arms folded during a road stop while driving home has won an appeal for damages from City of London police. Officers told him they believed he was speeding, but he was never prosecuted for this (Guardian, 25 Oct).
Disproportionate stop and search of travellers: A recent PSNI report reveals that Irish Travellers in Northern Ireland are ten times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than the general population, with a significantly higher arrest rate of 44% compared to 25% for others. Some travellers feel targeted and treated as ‘second-class citizens’, compromising their trust in police (The Detail, 29 Oct).
25% of UK population has a police record: New Ministry of Justice data reveals that approximately one in four people of working age in the UK has a nominal record on the Police National Computer, which includes convictions, pending prosecutions, cautions, and other criminal justice activities (Law Gazette, 30 Oct).
Section 60 watch*
Merseyside
Wirral (01-02 Oct)
West Yorkshire
Leeds (29-30 Oct)
Sussex
Chichester (22 Oct)
West Midlands
Walsall (12-14 Oct)
Thames Valley
Whitley, Reading (20-21 Oct), Abingdon, Oxford (16-17 Oct)
* This is not a comprehensive list
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