Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner West Yorkshire

April 14, 2022April 14, 2022

An Easter Miracle!

Only around one in ten complaints made to the police of poor conduct, breach of the College of Policing Code of Ethics etc. are found in favour of the person who’s complained.

This is because poor, ineffectual and incompetent investigations into complaints are par for the course from police forces. The more misconduct that’s happening in a force the greater the urgency to suppress public admittance of this by mishandling complaints.

The mantra is “We investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong”. Every police force does this.

As a police force West Yorkshire Police has more to hide than most. They’ve an international reputation for corruption and incompetence but also an obsession with maintaining a public image. Consequently obtaining agreement from them about their low standards of policing requires more of an effort than with most other forces.

In this instance however they were banged to rights.

A transcript of a online live chat with an officer left them with no wriggle room. This is proof of why all your interactions with the police should always be recorded… because the first instinct of most police officers when caught out is to lie.

The report made concerned a crime committed in the breach of s.92 of The Care Act 2014 (as amended). Wakefield Council had knowingly as a care provider created false information on a person receiving care in their area. This is a criminal offence under the Act.

I’ll write more on this in a blog entry one day soon.

Note also the length of the replies given. When police are trying to hide something in a complaint response they avoid discussing the subject, fail to speak to relevant people and avoid issues they’d find uncomfortable to discuss. Here, as I said, a transcript of the chat means they can’t avoid making a finding against themselves.

It should be noted that police have still failed to investigate this offence reported. So despite an unusual degree of honesty seen below it’s still a case of “bad cop – no donut for you”.

I present the Professional Standards Department response in full with a few small redactions.

From: Allen, Gemma <gemma.allen@westyorkshire.police.uk>
Sent: 14 April 2022 07:32
To: XXXXXX@XXXXXX <XXXXXXXXXX>
Subject: Your complaint to West Yorkshire Police [OFFICIAL]

Classification: OFFICIAL

Dear Mr. XXXXX,

I refer to the complaint that you made to West Yorkshire Police. I am sorry that you have felt dissatisfied with the service offered by West Yorkshire Police on this occasion and, where we can, seek to learn from feedback offered by members of the public.

I can confirm that this matter has been recorded in accordance with the Police Reform Act 2002 under Complaint reference CO-2675-21. Please quote this reference number in any future correspondence regarding your complaint arising from the same matter.

It has been established that your complaint raised the following concerns / allegations. In response, I have made reasonable and proportionate enquiries into this matter and can offer you the following explanation of the enquiries conducted, what facts have been established, the outcome and any proposed action to be taken:

Complaint 1: Delivery of duties and services

Employee concerned: Staff member 730037 Maroof

Details of allegation:

You state that the call taker has incorrectly referred you to the council to make a complaint whom you state have committed a criminal offence under The Care Act.

The operator has asked you to provide evidence that the council’s acts were purposeful and fraudulent however you believe that this should be the role of the police and is not your responsibility.

Enquiries conducted:

The details of the Police chat transcript have been reviewed.

The call taker, staff member 730037 Maroof has been requested to provide a response.

The Department of Health guidance for providers regarding The False or Misleading Information Offence has been reviewed.

I have consulted with The Police National Legal Database (PNLD).

A request for review has been made to The Force Crime Registrar.

Facts established:

The Police chat transcript shows that you have made an allegation to West Yorkshire Police that Wakefield Council have produced a social care document which includes the purported current health situation of a family member which is out of date. You state that your family members health has deteriorated over the past year and yet old records have been used to produce the report. You report that you believe this was an intentional act by a social worker as it was likely to avoid the provision of social care for the patient who would otherwise be identified as having clear social care needs. The chat transcript shows that the call taker, 730037 Maroof sought advice and directed you to make a formal complaint against the council in the first instance. You state to the call taker that the “Article 16 right to restrict the processing of the data has been applied.”

The call taker, 730037 Maroof has responded to your complaint to state that he felt that referring you to the Councils complaints process was an appropriate response at the time. The call taker has expressed his apologies if his assessment of the information was incorrect.

It has been confirmed that The Care Act 2014 has put in place a new criminal offence applicable to care providers who supply, publish or otherwise make available certain types of information that is false or misleading, where that information is required to comply with a statutory or other legal obligation. The offence is contained at Section 92 of the Care Act 2014. FOMI is a criminal offence and the investigating body for that offence will be the police, conducted in line with the “The Director’s Guidance On Charging”. The police can pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry. FOMI is a strict liability offence that applies to providers of care services as corporate bodies or partnerships. This means that a prosecutor has to prove that the information was, as a matter of fact, false or misleading, but does not have to prove that there was intent to provide false or misleading information on the part of the corporate body or partnership.

The Police National Legal Database (PNLD) outlines that Section 92 of the Care Act 2004 creates an offence so that providers of health services and adult social care in England, which supply, publish or otherwise make available information that is false or misleading, could be subject to criminal sanctions. The offence applies to a care provider as a corporate body.

92(1) A care provider of a specified description commits an offence if –

(a) it supplies, publishes or otherwise makes available information of a specified description,
(b) the supply, publication or making available by other means of information of that description is required under an enactment or other legal obligation, and
(c) the information is false or misleading in a material respect.

However, it is stated in law that it is a defence for a care provider to show that it took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to prevent the provision of false or misleading information as mentioned in subsection 1. This means that if the Council have already taken reasonable steps to rectify the matter then the offence has not been committed. By taking steps to restrict the data by invoking Article 18 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which provides an individual’s right to restrict the processing of the data, they have fulfilled this responsibility. Article 16 of GDPR then covers the rectification of the data.

Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Fraser from the Force Crime Registrar has reviewed the matter and confirmed that your report is a state based crime therefore the Police only have to record the offence when the relevant “points to prove” are made out. Unlike victim based crimes the Police do not have to record these offences at the point they are reported.

Finding: The service level was not acceptable under the circumstances

Rationale:

The information you have provided on the chat record shows that the matter has been reported to the council and that they have already taken reasonable steps and exercised due diligence in restricting the data. The matter does not require recording or further investigation at this time.

My enquiries show that Call taker Maroof has attempted to ask reasonable questions during your chat report when he has asked you if you have evidence to prove that it was done purposely and fraudulently. The call taker appears unfamiliar with Police Procedures around reporting of potential state based offences however he is not a Police Officer and could not reasonably be expected to know that the offence of FOMI does not require criminal intent on the part of the perpetrator. The call taker has attempted to seek advice whilst you remained on the chat facility and it appears he has been given information which has led him to make a recommendation that you should firstly report the matter to the council. His assessment would have been reasonable and proportionate under the circumstances if you had not already provided information to suggest that you had already reported the matter to the council. It appears that the matter was not fully understood and that you required further clarification before the chat was ended. It would have been more helpful to your understanding for the call taker to refer you for an appointment with a Police Officer so that the outcome could be fully understood and explained in more detail.

In conclusion, it is considered that learning has been identified in respect of this complaint.

Outcome/Action: Learning from Reflection

Details: An opportunity for learning has been identified which has been provided to the call taker through his direct supervisor.

Complaint 2: Individual behaviours

Employee concerned: Staff member 730037 Maroof

Details of allegation: You state that the call taker terminated the chat abruptly with no explanation

Enquiries conducted:

Call taker Maroof has been requested to provide a response.

The chat transcript has been reviewed.

Facts established:

Call taker Maroof has responded to state that due to time passed he cannot fully remember his reasons for ending the chat at the time. After review of the transcript he states that he may have felt that he had advised you what to do and so believed the chat could be closed. It may have been that you had gone offline after receiving his response so he assumed it was completed. He added that he can’t say for sure given the time that has passed but either way he does not think that he gave “no explanation” as he clearly provided advice on what you should do.

The chat transcript shows that the chat was ended 20 seconds after the call takers last response to you.

Finding: The service level was not acceptable under the circumstances

Rationale:

The outcome of this complaint should be read in conjunction with the information provided in Complaint 1. Although the call taker has remained respectful throughout the chat, it does appear that you had not been provided with a sufficient explanation of the outcome or the opportunity to understand the advice provided. This is believed to be because the call taker did not fully understand the police procedures around state based crime reporting.

In conclusion, it is considered that learning has been identified in respect of this complaint.

Outcome/Action: Learning from Reflection

Details: An opportunity for learning has been identified which has been provided to the call taker through his direct supervisor

It is considered that reasonable and proportionate enquiries have been made into this matter. The issues you raise in your complaint do not justify criminal or disciplinary proceedings against any officer concerned and therefore the matter has not been considered by the Crown Prosecution Service.

You have the right to a review of the above decision. Should you wish to request this, please contact the below review body by the 13^th May 2022. Please quote the relevant complaint reference number (above) if you request a review.

Due to the wording of your initial complaint, the review body is:

West Yorkshire Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. Should you wish to request a review, please contact:https://www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/policing-and-crime/complaints-and-conduct.

Please accept my apology on behalf of West Yorkshire Police for any confusion, inconvenience or distress that this incident has caused, and I thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. I hope the above action taken re-assures you that your complaint has been taken seriously and demonstrates West Yorkshire Police’s commitment to continuous improvement.

I hope that any future contact you may have with West Yorkshire Police will not be adversely affected by this experience.

Yours sincerely,

PC 1449 Allen

Service Review Team

22566

Professional Standards Directorate

* Email: Gemma.allen@westyorkshire.police.uk

+ Address: West Yorkshire Police, Professional Standards Directorate, Headquarters, WF1 3QP

February 7, 2021February 7, 2021

The Force Won’t Be With You! Illegality at West Yorkshire Police

BEING the story of how a data access request led to a breach of the law by West Yorkshire Police.

Few people would argue against the notion that West Yorkshire Police has an international reputation for corruption and incompetence. One of the less enviable roles to have at the force is in the Data Management departments dubbed, rather imaginatively as Information Compliance and Right of Access. Those pesky members of the public requesting data they’re perfectly entitled to must grate! This in those departments you stand as gatekeeper for great swathes of your information that must not be released as it could show your brother officers out to be inept, lazy or actually corrupt.

Consequently the job of anyone in a data access role at West Yorkshire Police is more akin to a doorman at the gates of Hell stopping Desmond from escaping than the role suggested in legislation as a facilitator of access to information.

Consider Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act which states that a person…

“is guilty of an offence if he alters, defaces, blocks, erases, destroys or conceals any record held by the public authority, with the intention of preventing the disclosure by that authority of all, or any part, of the information to the communication of which the applicant would have been entitled”.

…at West Yorkshire Police data access employees certainly consider this. Particularly the blocking and concealing aspects. And it probably keeps them awake at night.

A data access request was made to Right of Access department at West Yorkshire Police in early October 2020.

Eventually the data was provided (in February 2021) and as is par for the course this was considerably outside of the time limits allowed in law for the production of it and is thus is a breach of the law.

Additionally the mishandling of the original requests suggests misconduct in public office and willingness to commit a Section 77 offence on the part of a person or persons at Right of Access dept. It is for you, dear reader, to decide if this also constitutes a criminal offence of misconduct in public office.

A complaint was made to the (equally imaginatively named) Professional Standards Department (PSD) which they fudged. They were then instructed to re-investigate the complaint by The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) for West Yorkshire.

Part of the re-investigation instructions relate to data that was clearly withheld by Right of Access Dept. from PSD in contravention of their duty of care and candour. That this withholding of data skewed the result of the PSD investigation resulting in the matter being referred to OPCC.

I’m willing to take a pretty safe bet that Right of Access did not inform PSD of the matters below in the original complaint investigation…

The original request for data made in October 2020 resulted in a letter of 4.11.20 from Right of Access dept. which stated that the request was rejected for 60 days as ROA had decided to impose an arbitrary and illegal ban on my making data access requests. The illegality of the ban was pointed out to ROA.

The pointing out that the ban was illegal appears to have generated a change of heart. A few days later (16.11.20) this ban was lifted and a further letter of 16.11.20 assigns the request a reference number. Great! It’s finally moving forwards! The letter of 16.11.20 claims the request is being processed.

However illogically the following day the request was then again refused in a letter from Right of Access dept. of 17.11.20.

This attracted an internal review request from me. The response from ROA to this was:

“internal reviews [has been set up]… an independent member of the team who was not involved in this decision will assess your requests and whether they should be processed.

The matter was also referred to the independent watchdog for data access rights, The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a formal complaint.

ICO considers that 40 days is sufficient for the production of an internal review. The internal review was of course not concluded after this time and so the reviews were both chased with ROA after 40 days on 12.1.21.

West Yorkshire Police staff hard at work.

The result of the internal reviews were inconclusive and weak in that they upheld the original failure to produce the data without giving sustainable grounds in law.

Now here’s a hot tip next time a police force refuses your data access rights:

In order to act as a check on Right of Access dept. at West Yorkshire Police (experience leads me to not believe a word they say) I occasionally request the same data as has been requested from ROA from another police force to check matters such as the right of access in law to the data and entitlement to the same. This is something I specifically do as in the case discussed here where there is an outright refusal to supply the data. Having an uninvolved second party check what you’ve been told is truthful is frequently invaluable.

A letter in response from Humberside Police from them confirmed the rights to the same type of data requested from West Yorkshire Police.

So I wrote back to ROA on 20.1.21:

I refer to the attached correspondence with Humberside Police in relation to [reference number given]. In this correspondence I requested from that force the same documentation that has been requested from West Yorkshire Police…

Following the usual game of silly bastards that police force’s like to play in their initial response letter the data was provided in accordance with the obligation on Humberside Police in law.

The same legal obligation that has compelled Humberside Police to provide a copy of the data also obliges West Yorkshire Police to provide the same to me. Your internal review of the matter and the provision of the same from a local force must mean that the law compelling disclosure of this data from Humberside also compels the disclosure from your force.

I await a copy of the data requested…

A copy of the covering letter from Humberside Police confirming the right of access to the data requested was also sent to ROA on 19.1.21.

ROA wrote back on 21.1.21 saying the matter is with the ICO but that I am not prevented from making further requests.

I request again on this date a copy of all the data originally requested in October 2020. This request is acknowledged on 22.1.21. The data was finally provided in February 2021.

After the original refusals and messing around by ROA it must have galled the that they’d been backed into a corner with no further escape route. If the data is obtainable from one force it must logically be obtainable from all.

The point of the lengthy backstory above is this: ROA habitually seek to retain data that the production of would prove embarrassing to West Yorkshire Police. This purposeful retention of data breaches the law as it activates both yours and my Section 77 rights under data access legislation and the illegal retention of it is an example of misconduct in public office as the law is habitually flouted to avoid the production of data access requests.

In the above matter once the entitlement to data had been established from another force ROA had no option than to provide the data requested, but of course prior to this the data had been subject to so much hand-wringing and wrangling to avoid its disclosure, including the illegal imposition of a ban on requests being made and the arbitrary refusal of a legal and legitimate data access request.

Conclusion

I should not have to fact-check the legal position with requests to other police forces when a request for data has been refused by West Yorkshire Police. But it does help! Equally I should not have to do this for the purpose of getting ROA department backed into a corner from which they cannot continue to refuse access to data. Again though this does help! This is wasting my time and public money simply because ROA sees its position as a gatekeeper for information rather than accepting its actual position in law as a facilitator.

Section 77 cited above is clear: it is an offence to attempt to block access to data that the public has a right to.

Recently The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire Police has had a number of members of the public complain about the police’s Right of Access dept. Will this lead to a broader investigation of systemic and purposeful effort to block public access to data by delay, dithering and denial? Watch this space.

January 25, 2021January 25, 2021

Daylight Robbery! How Police Evade Accountability on Data Access Requests

In a November 2020 report The Information Commissioner (or ICO) wrote the forward to a report and stated:

“It is my hope that police forces, and other organisations, will read this report, understand their current position and identify actions they can take to improve or maintain good performance. We will continue to work with the police to support their compliance with information rights laws.”

Some hope of that!

When the Commissioner wrote of “their current position” she was using soft-soap language for what would have been more accurately described as clear flouting of the law and institutional efforts to evade disclosure of information.

The full report can be read at https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/reports/2618591/timeliness-of-responses-to-information-access-requests.pdf

Let’s take a look at West Yorkshire Police as being a recent example of this failure to comply with both the law on data access requests, ICO guidance and their general obligations to maintain good relations with the public.

The Office of The Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire has for some months now been aware of suboptimal handling of data access requests by West Yorkshire Police. They have noted an increasing number of complaints from members of the public about poor service and inadequate provision of data by Information Access departments at that force.

A Professional Standards Department investigation into a complaint brought by a member of the public that subject access requests made had been delivered late, were missing data and had been purposefully frustrated by police was mishandled by Professional Standards Department. The Office of The Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire (the PCC) found that the investigation had been substandard in several areas.

As per usual for a police Professional Standards Department the conclusion to the investigation ran along the lines of “We have investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong”. This outcome is usually achieved by PSD adjusting the frame of reference to the complaint to disregard all that inconvenient evidence that proves the complaint is correct. This indeed appears to have been done in this instance.

Accordingly PCC wrote in their examination of the complaint handled by PSD:

“The decision I have reached is that the outcome of the complaint was not reasonable and proportionate… [that a proper complaint investigation involved] Full consideration of the Information Management Department’s handling of [the complainants] requests over the last year, including all the ones he brought to the complaint handler’s attention and the involvement of the ICO in those requests”

Which is as I stated: police complaints department ignoring evidence which proves the force has misconducted itself.

PCC wants a re-examination of major aspects of the complaint and also wants to see:

“Full consideration of the wider context concerning the timeliness of replies to Subject Access requests by West Yorkshire Police, including the engagement with the ICO. This should take into account the findings and recommendations from the ICO’s report from November 2020 “Timeliness of Responses to Information Access Requests by Police Forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland”

…in other words the report I referenced above.

This is to say the least mildly inconvenient for police. An examination of the timelines for a dip-sample of data access requests made (but not fulfilled on time) is one of the easiest ways to see that police have broken the law in relation to these requests.

But of course if West Yorkshire Police were to investigate themselves and report to PCC the errors made in supplying data requested by members of the public then it would be impossible to hide the scale of information deliberately hidden.

So the response of Rene Prime, Reviewing Officer at Professional Standards Department to PCC states:

“Unfortunately, I do not agree with the actions you propose should be taken to resolve the complaint. I agree that full consideration should be given to [the complainant’s] contact and requests to Information Management over the last year and the issues that have arisen around those requests, however I do not consider that it is appropriate to consider the wider context of perceived issues within the Information Management Team.”

Which is as slippery a way as can be found to avoid PCC discovering the full extent of West Yorkshire Police’s efforts to evade the production of data requested by members of the public. This reply also in effect “cuffs off” (to use a West Yorkshire Police term) the recommendations of PCC which have been made in the light of the many other individual complaints from members of the public regarding failed data access requests.

The standard approach to data access requests made by police forces is not compatible with legislation allowing the public access to data.

Secretive, evasive and mendacious: police hate requests for information from the public.

Instead they seek to frustrate access requests, deny even the production of non-contentious materials and in most cases seek to delay the production of data beyond time limits in law so that the requester will be liable to forget all about the request and go away. At all stages the intention is to frustrate, vex and delay. This is often because the police operational mindset is focused towards evading any form of insight into their working practices or accountability. Ergo the more the public get to know about police methods and actions by data access requests the less the freedom for police to do more or less as they wish. An informed public is aware of the abuses of power and the bending of the law that the police perform daily.

The above correspondence gives you something of an insight into the attempts police make to avoid production of data which would make them accountable. This time last year the police complaints process was subtly changed to make the local PCC engage more with appeals into poorly handled complaints. It will be interesting in the light of the above to see if West Yorkshire Police’s PCC has the guts to challenge ongoing breaches of the law over data access requests to West Yorkshire Police.

December 31, 2020December 31, 2020

ICO Address Police Breaches of the Law on GDPR

Police forces are notoriously bad at responding to subject access requests (those are requests for your own personal data) as well as requests for data overall from the force, especially if the request for access is made by the public.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has recently published a report (link seen below) outlining just what an absolute catastrophe police responses to these requests are.

Click to access timeliness-of-responses-to-information-access-requests.pdf

As ever with such a report the real eye-opener are the recommendations made by ICO. In this instance these are nine points which show how UK police forces are failing to deal with data access requests in anything like an efficient and professional way. Often this is because the purpose of data access legislation clashes with police’s wish to keep information regarding errors in procedure and process wholly secret.

This report will cause consternation in particular at failing Humberside Police, a force subject to many eye-watering fines from ICO in the past for failures to comply with the law on data access by the public. The recommendations ICO suggest will likely be impossible for the force to implement.

West Yorkshire Police – as expected one of the forces most likely to break the law to try to avoid the production of data – said at a meeting convened by their Police and Crime Commissioner recently that they would be looking at increasing the staffing in the Information Management Department in the next year (budget permitting) to cope with the demands made upon it. “Looking at” and “budget permitting” is another way of saying that nothing will be done to address the problem.

November 18, 2020November 21, 2020

West Yorkshire Police: COVID-19 Super-Spreaders?

Presently the East Yorkshire city of Kingston Upon Hull has the highest COVID-19 rates of infection in the UK. The virus appears to be running rampant in the city causing a significant numbers of deaths.

The Guardian has quoted local Hull resident Gavin Storey in an article published this week. The original article can be found at:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/18/gypsyville-hull-most-deprived-and-covid-infected-suburbs-in-england

It states that Storey thinks it suits the ruling class have let the virus run riot through deprived communities like his. He says:

“It seems like they are trying to get rid of us. That way when it’s over they won’t have to spend so much money around here. Let the kids go to school, spread it to their parents and then let them all die. Most of the people in the country who are on benefits will be dead.”

Twitter users react to Mr. Storey’s comments in the article.

This all got me thinking about the initial wave of the pandemic to hit the UK in spring 2020.

According to information passed over to me in a conversation in spring 2020 from one of Leeds’ top criminal defence solicitors West Yorkshire Police were arresting and pulling suspects in for questioning with an urgency and speed which was quite at odds with the nature of a lethal pandemic and the requirement for people to self isolate.

Those arrested were not given masks and at that point before the end of the first lockdown self-sourced PPE was not commonly owned like today. The overall idea at that point was to protect by keeping your distance from others which makes the arrests carried out seem even more bizarre. Command Teams must have been aware of the risk of police stations as focal points for the spread of the virus. Frontline officers were of course given PPE but of dubious effectiveness which had been sold to the force, desperate to be seen to protect officers, as a “job lot”.

This is also unusual behaviour for a force which remains in financial dire straights considering the potential costs of increasing the pace in ongoing investigations.

Indeed I was told that at that time even people who had been released under investigation for a long period and who had no notification of progress on potential charges were being re-arrested and brought in for interview.

UK police tend to be toxic at the best of times.

In the same way as Mr. Storey thinks schools are being used to spread COVID-19 in deprived communities the sudden urge of West Yorkshire Police to pull in suspects for interview in the initial wave of a lethal pandemic seems… unsettling.

Were these actions part of a deliberate policy to assist the virus to spread in deprived communities?

Is this too outlandish an idea? Then consider also that in spring 2020 the elderly and frail were discharged from hospitals into care homes without adequate screening to ensure they were not infecting others.

The initial Government policy on the virus was to let it run through the population. This was the planning in the early stages of the UK’s response until SAGE, the Government’s scientific advisory group, suggested this strategy would lead to potential UK deaths of up to 250,000. This initial discredited strategy meant excess deaths through the initial lockdown coming too late. It is known that former Government advisor Dominic Cummings is a eugenicist who employed another advisor for a short period in February 2020 before that person’s past writings in eugenics were made public leading to their dismissal.

In every one of multiple other respects the UK’s response to the pandemic was lethargically slow and inept. This situation continues to this day.

The idea then that there has been purpose in the UK’s handling of COVID-19 has some merit. That the initial plan to allow the virus to rip through the population is still in play but not stated openly as a matter of State policy.

It is likely then that people with either criminal records or suspected of committing a criminal offence have been considered in the same light as the fail and elderly: a potential burden to society and something best gotten rid of. That the virus provides (to the State) a convenient ability to do just this.

I know of one clear instance of West Yorkshire Police officers attending at a suspect’s home without masks or PPE in May despite being aware of a vulnerable person being present at the home. Breaking subject access request laws the Right of Access Department at West Yorkshire Police have failed to release body worn video footage of this incident showing officers attending without PPE.

The theory that West Yorkshire Police were actively pulling in suspects in an attempt to spread Coronavirus around is just a theory.

But it’s a theory that does seem to fit into the overall approach of the authorities towards the virus from the inept Test and Trace system to Eat Out to Help Out. All of these have assisted the virus to move through the poorer sections of the population to the point where we’ve ow reached the second point of national lockdown within one year.

In South Korea there have so far been less than 600 deaths from COVID-19. Britain has (at a low estimate) 60,000 to date.

November 12, 2020November 12, 2020

Malfeasance at the Office of West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

The West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner is Mark Burns-Williamson, a largely gaff-prone failed politician. Heaven knows there’s sufficient data out there in the public domain to show that by any stretch of the imagination the man is unsuited to any role requiring public trust.

My favourite one details how he sent an inadvisable letter in a “love triangle” which would ordinarily have rendered him open to criminal prosecution. This was however covered up by West Yorkshire Police’s (then) DCI Simon Bottomley leading to the eternal gratitude of Burns-Williamson to the force he is supposed to scrutinise.

It also appears his office is prepared to manipulate and ignore facts to protect the very organisation it should be holding to scrutiny.

This blog entry tells the story of one such incident.

Burns-Williamson demonstrates the degree to which he hold the local force to scrutiny.

In May 2020 The Ministry of Justice’s Data Access Office sent data to a person (who we will call the recipient) in error.

This data was information on a third party who lived in the London area. This amounted to a serious data breach as the disclosure included the subjects name, address, date of birth and bank account details etc. as well as other disclosures regarding a series Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings against the data subject.

The recipient of the data informed The Information Commissioner’s Office and The Ministry of Justice as well as the data subject whose information had been disclosed. He also posted regarding this on Twitter but did not reveal any confidential information in so doing.

Data Access at MoJ requested the recipient remove the mocking tweet. The recipient of the data refused citing his freedom of expression under The Human Rights Act and that no offence in civil or criminal law had been committed by the tweet.

Three days later the recipient of the data was arrested at his home by West Yorkshire Police on the basis that he had breached The Data Protection Act. The allegation being that he had shared the confidential data sent to him in error on Twitter.

This was palpably untrue as an examination of the tweet would have confirmed. However police did not examine the tweet for themselves but took it “on trust” from MoJ that a supposed offence had taken place. Of course it hadn’t but MoJ were burning with indignation that a serious data security error had been made public and to their official regulator on data matters the ICO.

Police were aware that no offence had occurred.

The bar for arrest for any offence is set very high as recent cases such as Rachid v. The Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police (2020) show. Instead police took it on trust from The Ministry of Justice that an offence had occurred in a situation in which the Security Manager for MoJ’s correspondence (seen by this blogger) reveals his desire to give the recipient “a nasty shock”.

The recipient’s home was entered by police on his arrest. In the middle of the Spring 2020 pandemic a vulnerable family member who was shielding was subject to interaction with police who did not wear PPE or take any form of precautions regarding introducing COVID-19 infection into the home. Electronic devices were removed and the home was ransacked in the search. The officer leading this was PC Alan Jackson. Police actions amount to trespass to property (since there were no reasonable grounds for arrest) alongside trespass to goods and wrongful arrest.

The home of the recipient of data was raided by police without PPE in the middle of the spring pandemic.

Predictably no charges were brought. Emails seen between the Officer in Charge (OIC) and The Ministry of Justice reveal MoJ immediately loose interest when the recipient was arrested which fits in with the prior email claiming MoJ wanted to give him a nasty shock. No further action resulted to the recipient from either Police or MoJ.

A complaint was duly made by the recipient to West Yorkshire Police Professional Standards Department (PSD). Their internal investigation under The Police Reform Act 2002 confirmed – but only internally to the police – that the arrest was wrongful on the basis that WYP had not seen or been provided by MoJ with any indication that a criminal offence had taken place. Other aspects of the complaint made were ignored by PSD and not investigated.

An organisation such as West Yorkshire Police which has an international reputation for both corruption and incompetence needs to be able to head off complaints and minimise them early on. The investigation concluded in a document called an Assessment and Progress Log that there had indeed been no reasonable grounds for arrest, therefore logically the arrest was unlawful. This document was an internal document not for public or complainant’s consumption.

Police of course cannot admit that they have erred to the complainant. It opens the door for civil action for wrongful arrest and payment of compensation. It also amount to loss of professional reputation.

Thus the results of the PSD investigation which were presented to the complainant in August 2020 were totally at odds with the actual true findings of the investigation. The official line was that nothing untoward had occurred and that the arrest was legitimate: the unseen internal report stated quite the opposite. A copy of this report has since been obtained from WYP and examined.

If you find that the above shocks you then I would respectfully point out you may have little experience of the police complaints process and the extent to which it seeks to hide the conduct of misconducting and underperforming officers.

The complainant found some 21 issues with the PSD investigation response which were either suboptimal or evaded examination of the facts. Of course if you’re prepared to commit mendacity on such a scale as a police complaints office then it’s best to keep any communication simple. The response provided by PSD’s Vicky Silver was clearly exceptionally evasive and the errors in it were manifest.

Police Professional Standards Departments go to any length to dismiss valid complaints.

The complaint was progressed as an appeal to The Office of The Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire, this being a body with supposed oversight of the local force. Karen Gray at PCC was tasked with the examination of the appeal.

It is a basic element of any investigation that the investigator should have access to all of the data available to be able to reach a reasoned conclusion. This is common sense. In the course of the PCC’s investigation they either failed to obtain copies of documents such as the PSD Assessment and Progress Log or else were provided with a copy of the relevant data but chose to ignore it in favour of a rubber-stamped approval of the earlier PSD investigation.

Thus the office of West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner have shown themselves to be either as throughly dishonest or professionally incompetent as the police force they are supposed to supervise. Further they are prepared to support the local force in their dishonesty.

A further complaint was made regarding the failure of the PCC to obtain all relevant data meaning that the Karen Gray investigation was fundamentally flawed. This was responded to more recently by PCC’s Jane Owen who has stated that Karen Gray could not have been aware of the Assessment and Progress Log on the basis that it was produced after the conclusion of the original PCC review.

However the document in question from PSD is dated 5.6.20.

Therefore it was produced BEFORE the complaint was referred to PCC by around two months. The response that it was not available in the original PSD investigation is therefore an outright lie.

It is of course inconceivable that an investigation properly conducted would not have requested a copy of, assessed and examined the PSD Assessment and Progress Log which was in existence by this point and therefore PSD’s position that Karen Gray had access to all of the required documentation to enable correct conclusions is not only incorrect but also deliberately misleading.

The essence of the complaint to PSD regarding wrongful arrest etc. was proven – as that office was well aware – by 5.6.20.

All subsequent efforts of PSD and the office of the PCC for West Yorkshire have sought to bury the facts under an increasing mound of guff and nonsense.

PSD chose to issue a response completely opposite to the facts they had themselves established and The Office of The Police and Crime Commissioner has assisted them in this cover-up and continues to do so.

In a desperate final attempt to avoid further scrutiny Jane Owen writes:

I have concluded that you have used the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s complaints process to try and change the outcome of your complaint… and the subsequent review undertaken by this office but – in line with the statutory guidance that has been issued that sets out how reviews have to be handled – you do not have a further right of review

Is it any wonder that both West Yorkshire Police and The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner have such a poor reputation both locally and nationally?

Certainly both are prepared to bend the truth into impossible angles to avoid any admission of error or loss of professional reputation. Perversely this ends up in a situation as described above in which loss of face and reputation end up occurring both from the original issue and the labyrinthine efforts made to conceal it.