Tag: Complaints and Discipline South Yorkshire Police

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:

1. 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.   
2. That the online form had still not been processed some 7 days later.   
3. 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.    
4. 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.   
5. That these calls were either cut off when transferred to the appropriate department or else rang out for an exceptionally long period.   
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 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.    
7. That the same officer rang me back several minutes later.  
8. That his comments on the call back amount to harassment and intimidation. His manner during this second call was offensive, uncivil and harassing.    
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.   
   
   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.