On 31 August 2023 the Home Office announced a raft of proposed changes to the police misconduct system. This followed a series of scandals which have rocked the Metropolitan Police and caused considerable and justified public concern, including the cases of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick - albeit their cases did not make it to any police misconduct panel and their continued service in the Met arguably resulted from a failure of proper vetting, review and challenge by other officers.

While the proposals have distracted attention from the real issues, namely the poor standards existing at the Met and the failure to properly address those standards, there followed a series of broadsides from Sir Mark Rowley, directed at the 'fundamentally soft' lawyers running the misconduct panels (Legally Qualified Chairs - LQCs). It was alleged by Rowley that the LQCs had been coming out with 'soft' decisions and failing to dismiss officers who in his view, without any recourse to the evidence, the issues involved or what guidance the panels were required to follow, should have been dismissed.

That argument conveniently ignored the reality, that LQCs were not judging cases alone but sat as a panel of three, as occurs in most regulatory cases, including an independent panel member and a senior officer form the Met. The outcome decision is thus a collective one, and requires the panel to consider and give priority to the issue of public confidence in the Met Police.

The principal proposed reform involves the replacement of those same LQCs with chief constables or other senior officers. Bearing in mind that most chief constable are unlikely to have the time to sit on such panels, it is likely that the same senior officers who already sit on panels are likely to be required to chair them.

The proposals do not address the practicalities of requiring senior officers to chair a fully contested legal process, particularly where such a process can be complex, involving detailed legal arguments between the parties. Such arguments and decisions on the outcome for Met officers will require the consideration and drafting of reasoned judgments, impervious to appeal to the Police Appeals Panel.

However, above all else the proposal to remove LQCs and replace them with senior police staff is a hugely retrograde step, giving the perception that the independence of the panels has been compromised, where such independence is plainly hugely important and where public confidence in the Met is already low. It is awaited to see what legal challenges will be mounted to panels being chaired by police officers by the officers facing allegations.

The current guidance also requires a panel to consider a full range of outcomes, including an extended final warning, before dismissing any officer. The new proposals will do away with this, requiring a panel to dismiss in any case where a finding of gross misconduct has been made or admitted to, unless there are exceptional circumstances. While the battle lines may be redrawn over whether the conduct amounted to gross misconduct and what amounts to exceptional circumstances, it will be noted that the current panels did not have this option of 'automatic' dismissal.

While Rowley’s attempts to improve standards are commendable, it is disappointing that the individual who is responsible for the vital overhauling of the Metropolitan Police has chosen to attack a system which in fact has increased transparency and accountability to the public by these proposals. The previous system, which allowed the police to monitor its own without any form of proper oversight and which Rowley in effect advocates a return to, is plainly not the answer. It is a fundamental tenet of any democratic system that those who sit in judgment of others, frequently dealing with serious allegations, act in an objective, unbiased and independent way and are not constrained by potential consequences for failing to take a particular course.

 

Cameron Brown KC is a criminal barrister

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