Schedule 3 - Handling of Complaints and - Conduct Matters etc.
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I am grateful for the Under-Secretary's characteristically helpful response. It would be good if he could circulate something, even if it is an early draft. However, I have one concern in relation to the general issue that the hon. Member for Lewes raised. When the Under-Secretary talked about what will be in the regulations, he introduced the qualification ''serious'' when he talked about ''corruption or racial discrimination'', which are not qualified in amendment No. 5 tabled by the hon. Member for Lewes. That may go some way to addressing another of my concerns. It is well known to all of us who have been involved in legal matters that if career criminals want to muddy the waters after their arrest, one of the easiest things for a serious gangster to allege is that the police are corrupt. That is commonplace. There should be some way of determining whether the commission should consider an allegation of corruption, or whether it is merely an attempt to muddy the waters.
As the hon. Member for Lewes rightly says, we are all aware of the sensitivity of issues relating to racial discrimination. Before entering the House, one of my jobs as a corporate lawyer involved representing a large national company. From time to time, as happens with large companies, members of staff made entirely spurious allegations of racial discrimination against it, because they thought that by doing so they could get in on what I call the compensation culture and make a large sum of money. I represented the company when a member of staff alleged that a regional manager was guilty of racial discrimination. Unbeknown to the person making this entirely spurious claim, it turned out that that the manager's parents had been refugees from the holocaust. Because of his family background, he was the last person in the world who would be guilty of racial discrimination. When I, and others, cross-examined the person making the spurious complaint in front of an industrial tribunal, it also turned out that one of her allegations in support of her claim was that the area manager had said to a chap in reception who happened to be from an ethnic minority, ''Oh,
you look like Neil Diamond.'' That was purely a reference to the dress that he was wearing. Neil Diamond was white, which completely undermined the basis of the complaint. It had been intended as a compliment—not racial discrimination—about his style of dress. Spurious complaints can be made as part of compensation culture. Cautious words, which the Under-Secretary suggests will appear in the regulations, are necessary about allegations of serious discrimination.