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Catalogue of complaints against police revealed
2 Sep 2010More than 2,000 police officers had at least three complaints made against them over the past year, according to figures released today.
A BBC survey showed 2,073 officers were subject to three or more allegations against them from the public during 2009/10.
Most complaints were about rudeness, assault or failure of duty, according to the Freedom of Information request.
The Police Force of Northern Ireland had the highest number of officers with three or more complaints, at 376.
The Metropolitan Police was second with 273 officers, followed by Greater Manchester with 160, Kent with 130 and West Mercia with 117.
Altogether, the statistics from 43 out of 52 constabularies showed more than 5,000 complaints were made against officers over the past year.
According to the BBC, in Dyfed-Powys 40 allegations were made against one inspector and 38 against one constable during the year.
One officer in the West Midlands was also made to wear a headcam on duty because of the allegations, while another had their Taser training deferred.
Of the minority of forces which provided details about the complaint outcomes, more than half led to no further action.
Reader views (2)
Only 2000 officers complained about? How many police officers are there? How many people in the UK? When you consider that the majority of complaints are malicious I don't see what the fuss is about.
- Ranter, Maidstone, UK, 02/09/2010 11:10
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It's not surprising that complaints against the police are frequent. The very nature of law enforcement requires that one person, usually in uniform, exercises authority over another. It's only natural that some people will express their resentment by complaining. Complaining of 'rudeness' and 'incivility' are highly subjective observations and cannot be legislated or regulated for. Similarly, accusations of 'assault' are always going to be high as policing often involves some form of physical confrontation, be it to restrain individuals in potentially difficult situations, to arrest someone or even to detain someone in order to carry out a lawful search. There is no simple answer when it comes to the interaction between individual police officers and the public, as someone will always feel aggrieved when things don't go exactly the way they would have wanted.
- pete, Croydon Uk, 02/09/2010 10:46
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