A committee of MPs said it was shocked that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) routinely employed former police officers as investigators.

“Public confidence in the impartiality of the IPCC is bound to be damaged by these practices,” said the report. “We are shocked that this situation has been allowed to develop and recommend that steps are taken to prevent this occurring and to remove any hint of impropriety.”

The criticism will sting the IPCC whose current head of investigations was himself the subject of criticism in its reports into the Stockwell shooting.

Moir Stewart, a former Scotland Yard commander, was said by the IPCC to have made an error of judgment in 2005 when he failed to pass crucial information about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes to Sir Ian Blair, the then Met Commissioner. Mr Stewart was appointed to the post of director of investigations at the IPCC last year.

The entire IPCC is a con. Justice for de Menezes? Ian Tomlinson? It’s absurd that this should be true at all:

The committee found that in 99 cases out of 100, and despite the existence of an independent, statutory body, complaints made against police behaviour will be investigated by the police. They also highlighted concerns that using ex-police officers to investigate complaints to the IPCC brought into question its impartiality, adding that “a ‘postcode lottery’ currently exists in the police’s handling of complaints”.

Current committee chairman Keith Vaz MP has called for a future committee to push for serious reform of the commission. Don’t expect that to happen any time soon though, it is after all only ever likely to be as truly independent as the ISA.

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