The IPCC Is a Joke

The Home Affairs Select Committee has only just realised that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) fails in its function because it has a habit of hiring former police officers:

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.

More Met Abuse of Terrorism Act

The Metropolitan Police is still abusing section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000:

Two police officers are under investigation after using anti-terror stop-and-search powers against a man and two young children in a south London street.

The 43-year-old man had his mobile phones, USB sticks and a CD seized by the officers, who were in plain clothes, and was asked to stand in front of a CCTV camera in order to have his photograph taken. The undercover Metropolitan police officers also took the man’s photograph with their own camera and searched the two children he was walking with – his 11-year-old daughter and his neighbour’s daughter, aged six.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said todayit would “manage” the investigation into the incident in July, meaning that an independent investigator will control the inquiry conducted by the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards.

It is unusual for the IPCC to manage an investigation into an incident of this kind, and the decision comes amid mounting concern over police use of stop-and-search and surveillance powers. The commission has received dozens of complaints relating to the use of stop-and-search powers, but the nature of this complaint is understood to have concerned investigators.

Jonathan Warren points to the Terrorism Act 2000, and proves this search was unlawful. I wonder if the IPCC will recommend charges be brought against the undercover officers or just hope that as with the Gemma Atkinson arrest, the initial outrage will die down and they can kick the complaint into the long grass!