South Yorkshire Police – Legal Babble

September 27, 2021September 27, 2021

How South Yorkshire Police Evade Investigating Crimes & Evade Accountability

On Tuesday 22nd of September 2020 I alerted South Yorkshire Police to a crime taking place in their area.

This followed the original reporting of this matter via an online form for just such a purpose. The online form had not received a response some considerable time after being completed, so the appropriate phone call was made.

This call was to the non-emergency number and it took the duration of a trip from Leeds to Bridlington on the East Yorkshire coast for the police to pick up the call, so around one and a half hours.

Finally managing to speak with an officer he disputed that the incident being reported was a crime. In fact I was advised to call South Yorkshire Police in relation to this matter by two other agencies that I had already reported the crime to: they considered the seriousness of the matter sufficient to warrant police attention. The officer spoken to was a PC PC Marc Horsbrough.

In the call Horsbrough’s behaviour and attitude was lazy, gave the impression he couldn’t care less and was reluctant to record the crime even when the relevant legislation was pointed out to him. More seriously he later he called me back and the content of that call amounted to unwarranted personal attack on me and a flat refusal to record a crime.

I should point out at this stage that the crime has now been recorded and the suspect interviewed: further developments are awaited. This took place only after the completion of a futher online form, not via the non-emergency phone service to South Yorkshire Police.

A formal complaint was made to South Yorkshire Police Complaints and Discipline Team:

A complaint of a crime was made. This was done via the online form. That the response from the online form took longer than the 72 hours it states online for any action to be taken in respect of the referral of a crime.
That the online form had still not been processed some 7 days later.
That from comments made by Complaints and Dicipline in their email of 2.10.20 it would appear that this online referral has been lost.
That a series of phone calls were made by me on Tuesday 22.9.20 and Wednesday 23.9.20 to SYP to establish what was happening in relation to the online referral.
That these calls were either cut off when transferred to the appropriate department or else rang out for an exceptionally long period.
That on eventually speaking to an officer he stated that he had no copy of the online form in front of him but proceeded to dismiss the referral to SYP as being not something that police would deal with. This is incorrect. CPS guidance has been quoted that clearly shows the activity being reported is a criminal offence. The officer was Marc Horsbrough. working in either the Comms dept or Crime Recording around 12:45 – 1.30pm on 23.9.20.
That the same officer rang me back several minutes later.
That his comments on the call back amount to harassment and intimidation. His manner during this second call was offensive, uncivil and harassing.
That the officer concerned did this solely for the purpose of causing harassment, vexation and distress. On the second call he refused to give his name or service number when asked which is usually indicative of an officer misconducting himself.

That overall the standard of conduct in relation to this matter is sufficient to cause loss of reputation for the force.

The complaint was given the reference number CO/665/20.

Calls to and from police stations are recorded on a system called Airwave. When South Yorkshire Police later claimed that they could not trace the officer involved they were simply being disingenuous: the record of all calls will have enabled an easy trace of officer identity and indeed the identity of the officer has been found out by other enquiries.

From 5th of November 2020 to 13th of March 2020 no communication from police was received in relation to this complaint. They additionally failed to respond to emails requesting a progress update. The Police Reform Act 2002 states that police should keep complainants updated every twenty eight days with a progress update on the complaint.

So I wrote to The Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC). I have addressed the issue in prior blog entries that IOPC is very significantly staffed by former police officers, and provided the results of a data access request showing this, and so they cannot in any way claim to be “independent”. IOPC wrote back on 23rd of March to state:

“Upon receipt of your correspondence, we contacted the Complaints and Dicipline [sic]Team Department (PSD) of South Yorkshire Police to ascertain the status of your complaint. The PSD have advised that your complaint has been recorded under their reference CO/665/20, and that the investigation of the matter is still live. They stated that they have asked the case handler of your complaint to make contact with you.”

Around a month later still no response from South Yorkshire Police. IOPC cannot investigate a complaint when it is still with the relevant force, meaning that they cannot step in on this matter and compel South Yorkshire Police to act.
So I again wrote to IOPC who stated:

“I have contacted the PSD and asked them to make contact with you and provide an update.”

I then wrote to police a few more times to chase an update on the basis that they had failed to comply with the instructions of their professional regulator. On 15th of June, some three months after IOPC originally made contact with South Yorkshire Police on this matter the following came from George Henson at their Complaints and Discipline Team:

“I can confirm the receipt of your email and I have passed it onto the case handler of your complaint referenced above.”

…which tells me nothing about the progress of the complaint. This was the last communication received from South Yorkshire Police in relation to this matter.

A recent update to The Police Reform Act 2002 states that police are only obligated to inform a complainant when something has taken place in relation to the complaint investigation. As there has been no such update the clear conclusion is that there has been no proper investigation of this matter. We are now over one year elapsed from the complaint being made.

Likely this is because the Airwave system on which calls to and from police stations are recorded retains data for a set period. The failure to investigate this complaint is probably down to South Yorkshire Police attempting to “run down the clock” towards the deletion of this data which will show clear misconduct on the part of one of their officers. This will enable their Complaints and Discipline Team to then dismiss the complaint on the basis of lack of evidence.

The original crime was referred to an Inspector Stephen Fennell and has been investigated, albeit at a very slow pace.

The exceptionally poor service received before this investigation took place suggests anyone living in South Yorkshire who has a crime to report should really not bother. The delays and wasted time attempting to contact police on their non-emergency number and their lethargic attitude which attempts to actively put people off referring a crime are bad enough. However in my case the officer, because I had quoted the relevant section of law at him, took umbrage. His fragile police ego had been dented and his response was to abuse me on a call back and refuse to record the crime. The actions of South Yorkshire Police since have all been directed towards evasion of responsibility for the actions of this officer in a way which breaches their duty of care and obligations to investigate complaints under the relevant law.

November 23, 2020November 25, 2020

Desperate Times – Desperate Measures

Many ticklesome articles in the new Private Eye magazine (no. 1535, 20th November 2020) including this choice one on police recruitment.

Private Eye comments on police recruitment.

As always there’s many a truth spoken in jest.

At present the workload of the average Plod would incline anyone with the ability to obtain employment elsewhere to do so. Truly a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.

Nor are matters likely to improve with the new recruits when they’ve finally got some wool on their backs.

The lesson The Ministry of Justice learned to their cost was that sacking every experienced prison officer within range meant that the newer and less experienced were unable to handle the job with subtlety and skill. This caused a further recruitment problem as newly recruited staff also began to leave in droves once they realised the true horrors of the job they’d be facing daily.

So it will be with the new police recruits.

Possibly also unwise to have a large surge of untested youngsters in uniform, pumped up with testosterone and a newly-found sense of self-importance, kitted out with weaponry and the power of arrest let loose on the public.

One can only hope that new recruits will be paired with more experienced officers. But PC George Dixon is long since retired and these days six months or more in the frontline on the force and you’re considered a veteran. Stay for a year and doubtless South Yorkshire Police – the force that loves to hand out awards to underperforming officers – will have a decanter set and tin plaque to pass over to you.

An additional problem. Recent reports in the local press show South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Police finding themselves and their transport under severe attack on entering some estates in Leeds and Sheffield. Police cars and vans were recently destroyed as they have also been outside of Goldthorpe Police Station in South Yorkshire.

Here we can see how spirited local residents have offered their opinion on police service standards.

Can it be long before armoured “snatch squads” operating in a similar fashion to those grabbing terrorist suspects in post-invasion Baghdad are sent in to spirit suspects away from troubled estates?

So if you do see such officers on the streets soon be sure to look out for their armoured snatch too.

November 20, 2020November 23, 2020

“Cuffing” or “Shonking” at South Yorkshire Police.

In modern police parlance “cuffing off” a job means to look for a way to avoid dealing with a complaint about a crime made by a member of the public. Shonking means the same thing. South Yorkshire Police is very much focused on internal award ceremonies for its staff and members of the public calling to report criminal offences gets in the way of this. Most inconvenient.

So here’s the story. I had an offence to report on the basis of information that came my way. Having researched the offence and charging guidelines for the same as well as collated sufficient documents to show who was responsible and how I completed the South Yorkshire Police online form. This is their preferred way of contacting you. And so I waited for contact back. And waited. And waited.

Eventually a series of phone calls were made on one afternoon to South Yorkshire Police via 101. The poor handling of the initial report from the webform data and subsequent poor handling of all subsequent contacts are described below.

Basically the webform was ignored. Phone calls to check on the progress of the report of a crime were also consistently mishandled.

From the 1980’s to the present day SYP is mired in scandal.

The basic issues are as follows:

1. A complaint of a crime was made. This was done via the online form for such. That the response from the online form took longer than the 72 hours the website states for any action to be taken in respect of the referral of a crime.

2. That the online form had still not been processed some 7 days later.

This amount to the first effort to “shonk” the job.

3. That from comments made by Professional Standards Dept. at SYP in a later email to me it would appear that this online referral has been “lost”.

4. Following the lack of response to the webform a series of phone calls were made by me on the Tuesday and Wednesday to SYP to establish what was happening in relation to the online referral.

5. That these calls were either cut off when transferred to the appropriate department or else rang out for an exceptionally long period. The time it took to get through to someone was the time of my journey that day from West Yorkshire to Bridlington on the East Yorkshire coast. Some one hour and fifteen minutes.

6. That on eventually speaking to an officer he stated that he had no copy of the online form in front of him but proceeded to dismiss the referral of a crime being committed on the basis that this incident was not a crime and therefore not something that police would deal with.

This is incorrect. I quoted CPS guidance and sentencing guidelines that clearly show the activity reported was a criminal offence.

Most police officers have a very poor working knowledge of the law and are often the worst people to decide if an offence falls into their jurisdiction or not. Or if an offence has been committed in law. Without sight of evidence etc. the officer was additionally on very shaky ground.

7. That the same officer rang me back several minutes later. He had performed a search on my name after our initial conversation and my refuting his comments that the matter complained of was not an offence in law.

8. That his call back to me amounted to harassment and intimidation. His manner during this second call was offensive, uncivil and harassing. Having tried to “cuff / shonk the job off” only to be confronted by a member of the public who knew the law put his fragile and delicate nose out of joint.

Most police officers have exceptionally fragile egos and cannot bear not to have the last word on something. As sites such as the exceptional. ://crimebodge.com show (especially I would recommend their YouTube channel) this can often lead to violence and assault from the officer if a member of the public stands their ground.

9. That the officer concerned did this solely for the purpose of causing harassment, vexation and distress. On the second call he refused to give his name or service number when asked which is usually indicative of an officer misconducting himself. South Yorkshire Police have plenty of form for this. Ask the miners who were at The Battle of Orgreave: SYP removed their epaulets displaying service numbers so they couldn’t be subject of individual complaints.

South Yorkshire Police are internationally famous for violence and criminal negligence.

That overall the standard of conduct in relation to this matter was sufficient to cause loss of professional reputation, such as it is, for the force. Overall the behaviour described above gave the impression of South Yorkshire Police as being inept, incompetent and evasive.

Later that day is I rang again. This time to make a formal complaint. The College of Policing Code of Ethics has a series of guidelines which had each been breached in the police’s handling of this matter. Not least of these are those related to courtesy and respect. https://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/Ethics/Documents/Code_of_Ethics.pdf

I was told I would be called back in a few days. However again there was no response.

This matter relates to the following issues in the College of Policing Code of Ethics:

1. Authority, respect and courtesy.

2. Duties and responsibilities.

3. Conduct.

I emailed Professional Standards Department at South Yorkshire Police a few weeks later. The response was initially in terms of my complaint call of a few weeks earlier and stated:

Unfortunately, we are unsure as to who the officer was who spoke with you…

This suggests that the admin systems at South Yorkshire Police are not robust enough or else that they’ve already tried to evade examination of the complaint in the same way as they avoided examination of the original report of a crime. The comment is also vague: do they mean the misconducting officer I spoke to at around around lunchtime or the one spoken to to enter the complaint at 18:30 on the same day?

But it gets worse:

In relation to the online complaint form this does not a appear to have been received by us.

So an additional copy was attached to the response. Neither the original web form reporting a criminal offence nor the complaint form sent by email were received by the force. How many others have been similarly missed by them?

By this point some three weeks had elapsed since this complaint form was sent in to Professional Standards Department and their sobriquet was looking further and further misapplied. The South Yorkshire Police webform auto-generates a copy of the complaint for the public so it is unlikely that a copy was not sent to PSD. The comments they made about not receiving a copy are likely bunkum.

They stated:

If you would like to reply to this email with your initial complaint, we will pass it for assessment and ask our assessors to look into it asap.

So this created a further issue to the complaint: that failure to record the initial complaint call made around 18.30hrs in the evening to SYP via 101 amounts to a further breach of duty. A copy of this call will have been recorded on the Airwave system, which records all incoming and outgoing calls from police stations.

The failure to properly action the issues raised by phone in the evening call amounts to an effort to evade dealing with the complaint from an early stage. The “loss” of the follow up complaint form to PSD is a further effort in this direction.

Matters have now been before Professional Standards Department at South Yorkshire Police for two months without visible progress.

The whole fiasco makes SYP look doubly incompetent in their behaviour in failing to action the original webform, then “cuffing off” the job on the phone.

Then they fail to record and action the complaint made from 18:30hrs on the same day and further claim a follow up communication on the complaint was “lost”.

Heaven help people who actually live in South Yorkshire when it comes to reporting crime or making a complaint to SYP. Because the force’s systems are clearly set up to avoid having to deal with either.