Clause 34 - Conduct of disciplinary proceedings
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
6:00 pm
Mr John Denham (Minister of State (Police, Courts and Drugs), Home Office; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
An example is a case in which there had been high-profile public concern that a member of the public had been seriously and wrongly injured by police action. The necessary procedures might have
been gone through and, for a variety of reasons, it might be inappropriate to bring a criminal action, which would normally be the preferred course if someone had broken law. If there had been concern to ensure that the circumstances of the case had been properly examined, and the IPCC concluded that there had been a breach of the disciplinary code, it might be appropriate to have a public hearing to avoid allegations that an incident in which a member of the public had been seriously harmed had in some way been covered up.
Despite the reservations about media coverage that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath raised, under those circumstances it could be better for the reputation of an officer to have been cleared through a process that had clearly been carried out properly, and that people had seen reported, than for someone to have been cleared in an entirely private hearing with the inevitable allegations and suspicions that it was a ''police cover up''.