Police Accountability

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It is important that there are grounds for the police to recommend to the CPS and for the CPS to take action on prosecution. That could happen in any number of circumstances. In the circumstances that generated this Statement, the decision to take forward the prosecution was taken by the CPS and others. The court considered it and agreed that the police officer should be acquitted. That is a perfectly legitimate decision.

We have tried to put in a mechanism whereby there is a higher threshold for prosecution of police officers than there is currently, in line with what would happen to ordinary citizens involved in that type of activity elsewhere. That is right and proper, but we have also commissioned the wider review led by Tim Godwin and Sir Adrian Fulford, who will look at the legal test for the use of force and the threshold for determining the short-form conclusion of an unlawful killing in inquests. It is important that we rebalance slightly because, on reflection, that rebalancing is needed.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I broadly support the Government’s response to this review, but I will make a few comments about the case of Chris Kaba, Sergeant Blake and firearms officers. I am not sure that the review goes far enough in two clear areas.

I repeat that it is a tragedy that Chris Kaba lost his life—and for his family. It has also been a terrible time for the officer and his family over the last two years. But the review says nothing about reviewing what happened in Sergeant Blake’s case—the decision-making by the IOPC and the CPS in the court. We hear that the jury wrote a note; it was not published, but someone might want to review what it said. That is probably not best done in public, but the whole process may leave everybody a little confused about why Sergeant Blake was prosecuted when the jury took so short a time to reach its unanimous verdict.

Secondly, there is a more general issue about whether firearms officers, who, as we have heard, are few in number and deal with these very difficult cases on our behalf, have any comfort in law at all. When the criminal and the officer—who is only doing their job—arrive at the same location, why are they treated in exactly the same way? The criminal knew what they were doing when they arrived; the officer responded to society’s request—demand, almost—that they stand up for us and challenge this person, but the law gives them no comfort at all. This case highlights that, but it is not the only one.

So there are two questions for the Minister: a review, perhaps, of this case and the more general requirement in criminal law to treat firearms officers in a better way than they are treated now.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, obviously brings great experience to this question and this discussion, and I appreciate the discussions I have had with him—not just in the Chamber of this House but also outside the Chamber.

The noble Lord will know, and understand, why I cannot comment in too much detail on what happened in relation to this case. He will also know, however, that the decision to charge was made within the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the DPP guidance to prosecutors, particularly in relation to death in custody guidance, which covers any deaths following contact with the police. That was the procedure; I am not the CPS and nor should I be. It made the determination to prosecute in this case and the result was a very speedy acquittal by the jury. There was a two-year hangover, which caused great distress to the family of both the victim and the police officer. I understand that, and we are trying to speed up as part of the response to that case.

The important thing, which I hope I can guide the noble Lord to focus on, is the issue of the future, because we are trying to rebalance the prosecution threshold, which is key for the future. I fully accept the noble Lord’s point that we ask a lot of officers to, on our behalf, arrive at a scene, make split-second judgments and put their lives at risk. One of the things we are trying to do in the review’s response is to more effectively balance that balance between the response of an officer and the individual they may face. That is part of the working through of the code of practice that will be developed by the DPP, the review by the Attorney-General of guidance on charging police officers and the review by his former colleague Tim Godwin and Sir Adrian Fulford.

We can revisit this again in a few months’ time, but I hope, when we finalise the reviews, that will refocus how we best support officers dealing with extremely difficult situations.