Management action taken against 74 PSNI officers over BWV footage

The footage featured an arrest of a member of the public for possession of illegal drugs, during which the arresting officer made an error while administering a criminal caution, causing a colleague to laugh in the background.

The chief executive of the Police Ombudsman’s Office, Hugh Hume, said: “The video may have been viewed for entertainment and amusement, but the officers who did so showed little regard for the privacy of the man being arrested, nor for the emotional wellbeing of their colleague featured in the video.”

The issue came to light during a Police Ombudsman investigation of a separate matter, during which usage of the PSNI’s BWV system was examined.

Police Ombudsman investigators established that between December 2019 and November 2022, footage of the incident had been accessed 248 times by 82 police officers and one civilian staff member based at 20 police stations across Northern Ireland.

Most had accessed it once or twice, but many did so more often, including one officer who accessed it 21 times.

Further inquiries established that only five police officers and one civilian staff member had a proper reason for accessing the video.

The Police Ombudsman said 74 officers had no legitimate reason for doing so, and two officers had since retired and could no longer be held accountable for misconduct.

Another officer remains the subject of a separate and ongoing Police Ombudsman investigation examining potential criminality in relation to accessing the footage.

Mr Hume said: “The responses received from officers, when asked to provide their reasons for accessing the video, suggested an apparent lack of awareness that doing so might constitute a criminal or misconduct offence.

“A number of officers indicated in their responses that as a result of the investigation by the Police Ombudsman’s Office they had refreshed their knowledge of PSNI guidance regarding BWV, which I welcome.”

Mr Hume described the PSNI’s decision to take management action against the 74 officers who accessed the footage without proper reason as a “reasonable and proportionate outcome.”

He also welcomed the PSNI’s acceptance of three Police Ombudsman recommendations to prevent misuse of BWV.

However, he expressed concern that the PSNI did not accept a fourth recommendation for a dip-sampling exercise “to evaluate the scale of unauthorised access to the BWV system.”

“Given the weaknesses in the control of access to BWV it is therefore our view that there remains a significant residual risk that private and personal data can be accessed without a legitimate policing purpose,” Mr Hume said.

“On this occasion the Police Ombudsman has taken the exceptional decision to share these findings with the Information Commissioner’s Office in order that they can consider whether our insights can inform their work.”