Police: Vetting, Misconduct and Misogyny

Lord Judge Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

What I would say—and this is a personal opinion—is that it is very clear that the nature of policing is changing dramatically and has done over the past 20 years. We have just heard about the technological changes that have taken us all by storm over the last decade, and about the vast number of reviews, reports and so on. It seems to me that there is a case to be made to bring many of these strands together and do some new thinking.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

What, if anything, is being done to see whether there are serving officers in the police today who may be in the category of those regarded by the whole House, and indeed the nation, as a complete insult to police officers?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble and learned Lord asks a very good question. Nine forces were—this is appalling English—deep-dived into by the HMICFRS. All nine chief constables have been alerted to the specific case studies that were raised and they are expected to act on this with extreme speed.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

There are 43 forces; the others are not immune from this problem.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

No, they are not. Indeed, there was considerable data sampling across the rest of the forces, so a very similar process will be undertaken with the rest.