Police: Complaints Debate

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Department: Home Office

Police: Complaints

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts
Tuesday 3rd March 2015

(9 years, 9 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Bates Portrait Lord Bates
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On the general subject of complaints, there is an ongoing consultation which will report shortly. However, I will have to write to my noble friend on the specifics of his question.

Lord Elystan-Morgan Portrait Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
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Does the Minister accept that one disquieting feature of the report is that cases that were investigated locally in 2014 took on average 135 days to investigate completely while in the previous year they were dealt with in 125 days? Can he give the House an assurance that all necessary resources, financial and otherwise, will be projected at seeing to it that the situation at least does not deteriorate and instead of that improves?

Lord Bates Portrait Lord Bates
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The noble Lord is absolutely right and we know that justice delayed is justice denied. We need to move quickly towards a result in this situation. The reality is that most complaints are dealt with satisfactorily by the constabulary and it is only the very difficult cases that find their way to the IPCC. Often they are more complex and thus more lengthy in their consideration. However, the noble Lord makes an absolutely sound point.