Events | 2009.04.16
Afua Hirsch on the IPCC response to Ian Tomlinson's G20 death
The IPCC response to Ian Tomlinson\'s death shows how it has tilted towards the forces it is supposed to monitor
Last month the Labour MP Austin Mitchell asked Jane Furniss, the head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, whether her resources were so stretched that it was necessary to "redeploy staff from support activities such as night watchmen, custodians and floor cleaners into investigations". Mitchell, questioning Furniss for the Commons public accounts committee, was joking. But the response of the IPCC chief is nonetheless insightful.
Furniss answered as though it were a serious question, conceding that although she had not yet asked night watchmen to help with investigations, the IPCC was overwhelmed enough to bring investigators out of retirement and back on to casework.
It seems fair to presume from the committee\'s minutes that the IPCC is suffering from a crisis of resources. "Operating above full capacity" is the phrase used by IPCC officials. This should be translated with the figures in mind: a fourfold increase in appeals from local police investigations, and a trebling of independent investigations, without a significant increase in resources.
Mitchell\'s joke was a brave attempt at humour in a bleak moment for the five-year-old IPCC. The picture that emerged from Furniss\'s evidence was not just of an under-resourced organisation, but one whose mandate is clear while its reality appears profoundly murky.
For example, the IPCC - whose task is to independently investigate the police - was able to show that organisations including the Police Superintendents\' Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation were "satisfied" with the IPCC\'s performance; but it had no idea how the people making the complaints found its service. The IPCC concedes this is a "weakness", but it is much more: it reveals an organisation that has failed completely to be outward-facing and customer-serving. It is culturally tilted towards the police forces it is supposed to monitor, and financially incentivised to rely on their resources.
The two problems are linked. The age-old dilemma - only police can investigate the police, but the police cannot investigate the police - is exacerbated by a tendency of the IPCC to allow the police to conduct investigations themselves, using their own resources. A "managed" investigation, where the police are supervised by a single member of the IPCC, is exactly that.
Consider the IPCC\'s response to the death of Ian Tomlinson in the G20 protests. Its initial reaction was to accept the police position that Mr Tomlinson had no contact with the forces overseeing the demonstration. The significance of this - apart from the fact that it was untrue - is that had this view been allowed to persist, the death would have been investigated by the police without outside oversight. The duty of the IPCC to conduct an independent investigation would not have been carried out.
If this is an example of the organisation being far too ready to shirk its responsibilities, then it has form in this respect. Last year the court of appeal - in its first judgment on the IPCC since it became operational in April 2004 - alleged a remarkable reluctance on the IPCC\'s part to embrace its full investigative duties. The IPCC argued that it was only responsible for investigating events after the arrest of a man who fell into a coma in police custody. Despite the police force involved in the case asking the IPCC to conduct an independent investigation into the full sequence of events, it took a judge in the court of appeal to state the obvious and point out that the IPCC could not determine whether the police had caused the injury without eliminating other causes.
"Some forms of investigation ... are less independent than others," Lord Justice Longmore cautioned, adding that "in the case of death and serious injury in custody, the independence of the inquiry will be essential".
The IPCC continues to entangle itself in the age-old dilemma of the police investigating the police. But while this has prompted growing calls for reform, there is a further problem that persists.
Even if a police force is brought to account - a prospect whose likelihood is not inspired by the IPCC\'s performance so far - prosecutions against individual police officers are exceptionally rare. There have been 15 prosecutions of officers since 1990 - a tiny figure compared with the number of deaths in police custody, and so lamentable as to attract international attention. The director of public prosecutions - notably in favour of holding the police to account in his former life at the bar - is rumoured to be consulting privately on changes to the law.
Meanwhile, complainants seek private law damages to remedy wrongs that the prosecuting authorities have failed to address. In cases of death and serious injury in particular, as Mr Tomlinson\'s family has stated, these awards will never be adequate. The failure of an organisation to conduct an independent investigation when this is its fundamental purpose is the insult that adds to the injury.
• Afua Hirsch is the Guardian\'s legal affairs correspondent afua.hirsch@guardian.co.uk
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]cc-ian-tomlinson-investigation
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