Concerns About the Conduct of Northumbria Police
Professional Standards Department
(I sent this document to the Assistant Chief Constable and the Professional Standards Department. No reply was made.)
This is not, at the present time, a complaint against Professional Standards. However, I am increasingly concerned about the amount of needless errors PSD has made whilst dealing with my complaints. Many of these errors seem to stem from a simple lack of care, as if the matter was not worthy of their full attention.
I find it difficult to believe that competent people who actually care could produce such a catalogue of errors. If twice is a coincidence and three times is enemy action then what is five… a pandemic? I will list some of the errors and other concerns below. Again, this is not a complaint but I am considering one.
I realise the absurdity of complaining about PSD to PSD. Not just the incongruity of asking the department to investigate its own conduct but also the fact that any such complaint will no doubt be handled in much the same manner as the present one. Yet I can see no alternative.
I remind you that a very real, serious and provable injury has been done to my family by Northumbria Police. The matter really deserves to be splashed all over the national press, and the reason it has not been is more than likely not what you would expect. Instead I have chosen to give your organisation the chance to explain itself; to slog my way through an adversarial and frankly uncaring complaints procedure.
I am, however, running out of patience.
I feel that given the severity of the matter, it is little short of insulting that PSD is not giving it the consideration it deserves. Many of the errors I have seen would not have occurred if someone had taken a little more care over their response or perhaps stopped to consider what we need rather than dashing off a quick response. Perhaps this is not what has happened, but all I have to go on is the evidence in front of me, and that indicates that PSD – and Northumbria Police as a whole – simply does not care about the matter and has no real interest in resolving it.
Among the errors we have observed thus far:
Some of these points might seem like trivialities, but they do indicate a lack of attention which concerts me. My father’s impression throughout this whole ordeal has been that nobody cares:
This impression is borne out by the conduct of Professional Standards since. I have continually assured my father that if only I could make Northumbria Police understand how much harm they caused, then they would surely want to help him. I cannot in good conscience do this any longer as I do not believe it to be true.
Northumbria Police knows how much harm was done. That, and the fact that senior officers have shown an interest, should indicate that extra care and attention needs to be taken when dealing with these matters. Yet PSD continues to make needless, easily avoidable errors that indicate to me that nobody cares enough to even proofread what they are sending out.
If you cannot even take the time to get his name right, how can I assure my father that you care in the slightest about the harm he was done?
I do not want to have to fight PSD over this matter. I just want them to start dealing with our real and genuine concerns as if they actually mattered.
This is not, at the present time, a complaint against Professional Standards. However, I am increasingly concerned about the amount of needless errors PSD has made whilst dealing with my complaints. Many of these errors seem to stem from a simple lack of care, as if the matter was not worthy of their full attention.
I find it difficult to believe that competent people who actually care could produce such a catalogue of errors. If twice is a coincidence and three times is enemy action then what is five… a pandemic? I will list some of the errors and other concerns below. Again, this is not a complaint but I am considering one.
I realise the absurdity of complaining about PSD to PSD. Not just the incongruity of asking the department to investigate its own conduct but also the fact that any such complaint will no doubt be handled in much the same manner as the present one. Yet I can see no alternative.
I remind you that a very real, serious and provable injury has been done to my family by Northumbria Police. The matter really deserves to be splashed all over the national press, and the reason it has not been is more than likely not what you would expect. Instead I have chosen to give your organisation the chance to explain itself; to slog my way through an adversarial and frankly uncaring complaints procedure.
I am, however, running out of patience.
I feel that given the severity of the matter, it is little short of insulting that PSD is not giving it the consideration it deserves. Many of the errors I have seen would not have occurred if someone had taken a little more care over their response or perhaps stopped to consider what we need rather than dashing off a quick response. Perhaps this is not what has happened, but all I have to go on is the evidence in front of me, and that indicates that PSD – and Northumbria Police as a whole – simply does not care about the matter and has no real interest in resolving it.
Among the errors we have observed thus far:
- The response to our initial complaint cites an unproven allegation as fact. This is mentioned in my new complaint, but I have also received a communication from PSD which says the complaint was handled properly. This cannot be the case if unproven allegations are being presented as facts in the response.
- When I attempted to raise new points including the above, this complaint was rejected out of hand as ‘repetitious’ and ‘identical’ to the original. The most cursory reading would have indicated that it was not. Indeed, two of the points in this new complaint arose from the response to the original one, and in the words of the IPCC ‘cannot possibly be repetitious’. I do not see how anyone who actually read the complaint could consider it repetitious, yet it was rejected as such. The only explanation I can find is that it was rejected out of hand without being properly considered, perhaps because it referred to the same incident as the first complaint. This suggests a lack of attention and interest on the part of PSD and is unacceptable.
- The letter informing me of the rejection got my name wrong, but not consistently. A minor matter perhaps, but taken along with similar instances this indicates a lack of attention to detail which in turn suggests to me that this matter is not being given the careful attention it deserves.
- When PSD was asked by a very senior officer to explain how the above new complaint came to be rejected as repetitious when it is clearly not, they responded by explaining to me what repetitious means. It should have been quite obvious from my objection to a rejection as repetitious of a complaint that clearly was not that I understand perfectly well what the word means and that this was not an appropriate response to my question. This communication went on to mention that the points I raised had not been brought up previously. This obliquely proved that I was right – my complaint was indeed not repetitious. What the response failed to do was address the question – why was it rejected as repetitious when it clearly was not?
- I emailed PSD to point out that the above question had not been answered. It still has not. Chief Superintendent Noble asked PSD to provide me with an answer to this question, but I still do not have one.
- When, though the intervention of the IPCC, I finally managed to get PSD to record my complaint they produced a list of allegations out of it that bore virtually no resemblance to the complaint I made, in particular completely omitting one important point and somehow managing to not include the key question that lies at the heart of the whole matter – the decision to deal with a routine matter by waiting several days then arresting an old man away from his sick wife’s bedside in the middle of the night.
- When I presented a corrected list of allegations, some of my corrections were applied, some applied in a manner that required further correction, and one important correction was completely ignored. This indicates a lack of attention which worries me.
- This new list of allegations also contained a number of errors that indicate lack of care and attention. My name was mis-spelled – but not consistently – and some of the allegations were written in a manner that was confusing or indicated that they had not been proofread.
- I have submitted a revised-revised list of allegations. I can only wait and see whether these are implemented correctly.
Some of these points might seem like trivialities, but they do indicate a lack of attention which concerts me. My father’s impression throughout this whole ordeal has been that nobody cares:
- Nobody cared about the inappropriateness of disturbing an old man late at night when several days had been available in which to make a more suitable approach.
- Nobody cared about how sick his wife was when the decision to arrest was made.
- Nobody cared enough to treat him decently when he attended Southwick Police Station per his bail conditions
- Nobody seems to care about the harm that was done to him and to the rest of my family.
This impression is borne out by the conduct of Professional Standards since. I have continually assured my father that if only I could make Northumbria Police understand how much harm they caused, then they would surely want to help him. I cannot in good conscience do this any longer as I do not believe it to be true.
Northumbria Police knows how much harm was done. That, and the fact that senior officers have shown an interest, should indicate that extra care and attention needs to be taken when dealing with these matters. Yet PSD continues to make needless, easily avoidable errors that indicate to me that nobody cares enough to even proofread what they are sending out.
If you cannot even take the time to get his name right, how can I assure my father that you care in the slightest about the harm he was done?
I do not want to have to fight PSD over this matter. I just want them to start dealing with our real and genuine concerns as if they actually mattered.
