Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, it is my privilege to try to record some new facts in this debate and perhaps to balance some of the comments that have been made today—indeed, some of the rhetoric that has been employed—and particularly to answer, if I can, some of the questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool.

As we have heard, the disaster at the Hillsborough Stadium occurred on Saturday 15 April 1989. The following day, I was asked to support Lord Taylor in the investigation of the causes of that terrible event. I was then chief constable of the West Midlands Police, which, I might add, is the largest police force in England and Wales, outside London. I met Lord Taylor in Sheffield on Tuesday 18 April and he expressed his wish to begin to take evidence in public within three weeks of the disaster. We discussed what would be involved to meet that three-week timescale; a timescale that had never before been attempted in circumstances of that magnitude and, I believe, has never been attempted since. Even with the 440 police officers that I was able to deploy to that inquiry, it was obvious to both of us that some extraordinary measures would have to be taken if we were going to work to that timescale. To speed the process, he directed that we should request South Yorkshire Police to arrange for police officers who were witnesses to the disaster to write their own statements and that their force would produce them for the inquiry. On that point, more later. I should also say that the procedure did not relate to the half dozen or so officers who would later be interviewed by my team to explore whether criminal charges should be brought against them personally.

To make the position clear, those decisions regarding the process concerning South Yorkshire officers and those timescales were his. I agreed with them and since his death in 1996, in post as Lord Chief Justice, I am happy to assume full responsibility for that decision. He was required to report, if possible, before the start of the next football season; speed therefore was of the essence. We concluded together this unusual approach hardly mattered. What did matter was that witnesses should be examined in a public inquiry as soon as possible, while memories were still fresh, and it was what they said in that inquiry that mattered, not what was or was not included in their witness statements.

Working to that timescale the West Midlands team, as you might conclude, faced a mammoth task. That investigation commenced six days after the disaster on 24 April. Special police offices were established in Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham. A free-phone telephone number was advertised and operated on no fewer than 28 different lines, all of them manned around the clock. They received 2,666 calls. Witnesses who were interviewed and had statements taken totalled 3,777. Many of my officers who were involved in those interviews were deeply emotionally affected. We have heard of the anguish, shock and horror of those in Liverpool who were caught up in this tragedy and this affected those officers as well. Some 3,777 statements were taken and 71 hours of CCTV footage were examined in detail. An inquiry into possible criminal charges was commenced. Most of that took place in only three weeks.

Lord Taylor began to take evidence in public exactly four weeks after the disaster occurred. He sat for 31 long days and examined 174 witnesses. Only three and a half months after the disaster, he published his report on 1 August. He had many conclusions but his major ones fell into three categories. First, he found there were a number of causes for the disaster. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool has already referred to the fact that there were serious misgivings from as early as 1981 and Lord Taylor reported on that and what had been done—and indeed not done—in the interim period. He was adamant, however, that the final and most serious cause of the disaster was the failure of South Yorkshire Police to control the crowd and to ensure its safety. Secondly, he looked at the conduct of the crowd and found there were a few very isolated examples of drunkenness, but there was absolutely no evidence that Liverpool fans had contributed in any way to what had occurred on the terraces. Thirdly, bearing in mind what we are debating today, he found that the oral evidence given by 65 South Yorkshire police officers impressed for the most part in inverse proportion to their rank. As he said, with some notable exceptions the senior officers were defensive and evasive witnesses, and did not, as he put it, show the qualities of leadership to be expected of their rank.

In particular, in his report at paragraph 285, he said:

“It is a matter of regret that at the hearing, and in their submissions, the South Yorkshire Police were not prepared to concede they were in any respect at fault in what happened”.

He continued:

“The police case was to blame the fans for being late and drunk, and to blame the Club for failing to monitor the pens”.

He concluded:

“Such an unrealistic approach gives cause for anxiety as to whether lessons have been learnt. It would have been more seemly and encouraging for the future if responsibility had been faced”.

Finally, both he and the Football Supporters’ Association warmly praised West Midlands Police for the way in which the evidence had been gathered and presented at the inquiry.

So it seems a little strange, and not a little disappointing, that the hugely excellent report recently published by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool has been hailed as the report that finally exposed the truth when it roundly endorsed and mirrored the findings of the Taylor inquiry. It perhaps begs the question that some of the language used by the Prime Minister and others that this has finally produced justice ought to reflect the fact that Lord Taylor got to the truth 23 years earlier.

It might also reflect on the fact that Lord Taylor informally expressed serious doubts to the coroner about the coroner’s plans to limit his inquest by employing the 3.15 pm cut-off; and also that he did not agree with the coroner’s intention to have witness statements read in the inquest which effectively denied opportunity for cross-examination. He was unable to influence the course of that subsequent process, which was out of his hands, and it did not begin until several months later.

The truth was first made public by the Taylor report in 1986. As we have heard, the waters were muddied considerably, more and more with the passage of time. Immediately the Taylor report was published, the South Yorkshire Police went public—on to the attack, if you like—with a condemnation of the conclusions and stoutly maintained that the police were in the right and the Liverpool fans were in the wrong. The inquiry that will be eventually mounted by the IPCC will of course examine this aspect in detail, and especially whether attempts were made by South Yorkshire Police wrongly to attribute blame. The Bill seeks to facilitate that inquiry. I hope that we shall not have to wait too long for the results.

By common consent, Peter Taylor was a man of rare talent. Noble Lords will understand already that I held him in high regard and respect. He was prepared to move fast to expose the truth. His report employed elegant and economical prose and it managed to cover the ground in only 71 pages. It was published a mere three and a half months after the disaster with firm, clear, unequivocal conclusions. That is exactly the same passage of time that has elapsed since the publication of the report of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, and the IPCC is still scoping its inquiry and deciding on how it might begin to progress. I do not want to appear unduly critical, but I hope that we shall not have to wait too much longer for action.

On the Bill, perhaps the question at the forefront of the minds of many of us is: do hard cases make bad law? Nothing could be a harder case than the tragedy of Hillsborough. Is the Bill bad law? In some ways I think it is. The loophole that the Bill seeks to block by requiring serving police officers to attend for interview has been a small but recurring problem for investigators, on and off, for years, so why use emergency procedures to rush it through now? After all, that power will not much assist the Hillsborough inquiry by the IPCC because most of those it may wish to interview, as we have heard already, will no longer be serving. Mostly they are retired; in some cases, they are dead.

The power to require retired officers to attend interview is not sought, although one hopes that those who are approached will co-operate—and I fully concur with what has been said. Certainly I shall, if evidence is ever sought from me.

I am not sure whether Clause 2—the application of Part 2 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to old cases—breaches rules of double jeopardy. In particular, at this stage or shortly after, there have to be safeguards in place for police officers interviewed by the IPCC. The practice of sometimes interviewing an officer as a witness without first cautioning him, then using that witness statement against him in later criminal proceedings, has to change. Interviewing under caution is standard procedure for non-police officers and should be a protection afforded to the police as well. I endorse the recommendation of the Home Office Select Committee and believe that the IPCC should employ a more rigorous interpretation of the threshold set out in the Police Reform Act to ensure that it becomes the norm that officers are interviewed under caution in the most serious cases.

This is certainly a Bill in a hurry. Usually I would resist it on that ground alone, seeking more time and due process to consider the issues in depth. But having stood here and praised the approach of Lord Taylor, who identified the truth in double-quick time, I can hardly complain at another attempt to speed up the investigative process, when so much time has been wasted over the last 20 years or so chasing irrelevancies or trying to find a way through a fog of half truths and worse. So great is the public interest in Hillsborough for understandable reasons, and so important is it that this issue should be dealt with once and for all that, with some jurisprudential reservations, I support the Bill.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

My Lords, I need to start by saying that I fully support the Bill. However, I have two caveats that I have already outlined to the Minister and to which I hope he will respond in a while. In asking the Minister about these two matters, I am not trying to weaken the Bill but to strengthen it. Put simply, it would be helpful if this House was to demonstrate that it understands that police officers themselves need to believe in the provisions of the Bill. They will best do that if they believe that the provisions are fair.

I was not at Hillsborough; I was not involved in Hillsborough; but I have no illusions about it. I am on record recently as describing in the Times what happened at Hillsborough as appearing,

“to be the most egregious example of deliberate dissimulation in the history of the British police”.

When I read the right reverend Prelate’s report, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my profession. So, like all noble Lords, I wish the IPCC and the future coroner well with all their efforts. I have no illusions about Hillsborough.

However, it is vital to remember that although the Bill is occasioned by Hillsborough and the tragedy and failures there, it is not only about Hillsborough. Until and unless these provisions are repealed, they will provide powers to the IPCC and other organisations working under IPCC supervision that will cover all their investigations now and in future. I need to declare a rather unusual interest: I think I am safe to believe that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who has been interviewed by the IPCC as a witness. I have a personal duty to try to help get this matter right for the future. I shall say something briefly about both clauses.

I do not think that there are any noble Lords with a military background currently in the Chamber but if there were, they would recognise something that I am about to say. Servicemen and women are always uneasy at being interviewed by military police. It is the same for serving police officers when faced with people investigating complaints against the police. The powers in Clause 1 compel serving officers to attend as witnesses. We seriously need to distinguish between witnesses and suspects. I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dear, about strengthening the idea of cautioning all police witnesses. Remember that all police witnesses if cautioned will be told, “You are not obliged to say anything”. We want them to feel obliged to say something, so we have to distinguish between witnesses and suspects.

[Lord Dear]

I was not saying that all police witnesses should be cautioned, only those who are being interviewed for very serious offences, which is what the Home Office Select Committee said.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. What I took him to be saying was that all police witnesses in serious cases should be interviewed under caution. Perhaps we can agree to get the definition of that right.

If we are talking about witnesses, it would be extremely unlikely that the Police Federation or any other representative body would be able to provide detailed legal advice to those officers, let alone a lawyer, so they will be going into the interview room accompanied only by a friend. We need to dispel the kind of uneasiness that they will be feeling. My suggestion to the Minister is that, when closing the debate, he makes clear his expectation that police officers being interviewed as witnesses by the IPCC investigators should be given the maximum disclosure of information—that is what proposed new Section 19F(3)(c) should mean.

In no way should a compelled witness have any cause to fear, as he or she enters the interview room, that he or she will be tricked. These are witnesses, not suspects. If they are suspects, they have to be treated differently. If they are witnesses, they must be treated with obvious and visible fairness. Whatever happened at Hillsborough, the men and women now serving in the police service deserve no less than that.

I entirely agree with the purpose of Clause 2. However, some IPCC investigations and those by its predecessor body can be—and have been—very long. Careers are put on hold and the pressure of such an investigation can sit at the back of the mind month after month, year after year. When, after such a long time, the investigation is finished and an officer is exonerated—if he or she is—they are largely entitled to expect that that is and will remain the end of the matter.

I therefore ask the Minister to make clear his expectations of the IPCC that the words “exceptional circumstances” in proposed new Section 28A(1), in relation to opening a closed inquiry, not only mean what they say but refer only to circumstances in which new evidence appears to have arisen or the level of public concern makes it imperative for the case to be reopened. Cases should not be reopened capriciously nor for political advantage. It is not enough for the Minister to emphasise that it is important that IPCC resources are not to be misused in this way. The majority of officers in England and Wales deserve no less than a statement today that fairness to officers is also a consideration.

Putting it bluntly, a police officer—like any other free citizen—has the right to refuse to assist the police in an investigation, but I also believe that any police officer who does so should forfeit the right to be a police officer. I want all police officers to believe that full compliance with the inquiry is their professional duty and I want their predecessors, now retired, to believe that their pride in their previous profession should also make them want to assist the inquiry. To do that, we should try to ensure that the working practices of the IPCC, outlined in this Bill, make fairness clear and obvious. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.