PCC accuses IPCC of inept judgment as officer cleared over Plebgate affair
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been slammed as an embarrassment after an officer was cleared of misconduct in the wake of the Plebgate affair
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been slammed as an embarrassment after an officer was cleared of misconduct in the wake of the Plebgate affair.
Warwickshire police and crime commissioner (PCC) Ron Ball launched a stinging attack on the IPPC for judgment calls that he claimed were inept from start to finish in its overseeing role in the highly-damaging saga.
Mr Ball accused the commission of taking the wrong course of action which resulted in a protracted process of inquiry costing vast sums of money.
And he rounded on the IPCC suggesting that chief constables and PCCs the length and breadth of the country would now be wondering about its governance and oversight and asking: Who is it answerable to?
The fall-out from Plebgate has seen a heavy price paid by individuals caught up in it with personal and financial reputations ruined, added the PCC.
Four police officers lost their jobs and one of those PC Keith Wallis was jailed for a year for misconduct in public office, accused of falsely claiming to have witnessed the incident in an email to his MP.
Former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell lost his job as the Governments chief whip and a High Court libel action.
On Wednesday (February 3), however, Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton accused of giving a misleading account of a meeting with Mr Mitchell at the height of the Plebgate row was cleared of breaching policing honesty standards in a misconduct hearing at Warwickshire Polices headquarters.
Speaking at the conclusion of the hearing, Mr Ball said: Todays hearing hopefully brings to a conclusion a sorry saga that has taken far too much time and leaves very few people of those involved with any credit.
I have previously described the Plebgate affair as a national embarrassment and I stand by that view.
In most cases, those involved have paid a heavy price: a few seconds of very poor judgement by Andrew Mitchell MP have cost him dearly, both in financial and reputational terms; a number of police officers have been disciplined, lost their jobs and, in one case, justifiably been imprisoned, while Det Sgt Hinton has been subjected to an overly-lengthy process before the allegations were found to be not proven.
There is one organisation, however, which has performed extremely poorly throughout: the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Their judgments concerning this case have been inept from start to finish.
He said the IPCCs initial decision had been to allocate the case as a supervised investigation the third least serious on the scale, just above local resolution for the very serious allegation that, potentially, members of the Police Federation had colluded to bring down a cabinet minister.
This was both astonishing and inexplicable. Unfortunately, the quality of their subsequent decision-making did not improve, he added.
That first investigation had to be re-run, despite being supervised by the IPCC. A subsequent investigation found there was a case to answer for misconduct by the Warwickshire officer.
He said: At this point the IPCC used their powers to intervene and imposed an allegation of gross misconduct only to be proved wrong once again. The determination today that there has been no misconduct at all only serves to reinforce this point further.
Had the IPCC taken a different decision initially and conducted their own independent investigation which allegations of this seriousness would have merited this whole process could have been completed literally years ago, saving vast amounts of money.
Instead, the costs of all of this have been massive and the public have been left with serious questions about the credibility and competence of the very body which is expensively funded to resolve just these sorts of issues.
Unfortunately, there are police and crime commissioners and chief constables the length and breadth of the country questioning the governance and oversight of the IPCC, asking to whom is it answerable