Post Incident Procedure is like a safety blanket to officers, says Federation Chair

SOUTH Yorkshire Police officers who may find themselves in a post-incident procedure (PIP) can rely on the backing of their Federation, Chairman Steve Kent has said.

The importance of following procedure should someone die or be seriously injured following police contact, and the impact incidents can have on officer welfare, was high on the agenda at the recent PFEW PIP Seminar in Warwickshire.

Imposing time limits on the length of time it can take the IOPC to investigate officers was also a hot topic.

“We support the PIP procedure, and we have highly trained Federation reps who are on hand to be called out if anything happens,” Steve said.

“The issue for a lot of officers is that when a bad incident happens, somebody is whisked away, and they don’t know what’s going on.

“I’ve made it my business and our Federation’s business just to give officers some awareness [about the process].

“They’ll be greeted by a trained Fed Rep, and then everything will be done in a calm, measured and supportive way so that they can get through the situation with ease.”

Following PIP procedure is very much in officers’ best interests, he added.

“The PIP process looks at what’s happened, and it looks at it methodically and slowly. There are no knee-jerk reactions to it.

“It’s a case of getting officers into a situation where they can give some initial accounts as to what has happened and the important thing is that the PIP process is supervised from a Fed point of view, with trained officers and solicitors, so it actually prevents officers putting themselves at risk by talking about what’s happened without anybody there to supervise and look after their best interests.

“All it’s doing is getting people on-hand who are trained to deal with the process going forward – it’s like a safety blanket for officers.”

The Federation is also backing calls for IOPC investigations to have strict time limits imposed to stop cases dragging on for years.

One high profile case involving Met officers took nearly 12 years to be concluded, which Steve says can leave officers on a career ‘knife-edge.’

“It has a massive effect on officers’ mental health,” he said.

“It’s absolutely right that the majority of cases need to be [resolved] within 12 months so that officers can get on with the job.

“And also, let’s think about public funding for a second. We’ve got officers who are restricted for literally a decade, that is literally a salary being wasted where these officers could be doing a job FOR the public.

“So, it’s robbing the public of officers doing a service as well as the mental health issues for officers.

“I’ve discussed this with the IOPC in person, and I completely accept that there may be exceptions to the 12-month rule in terms of complex cases etc.

“But for me, that should be the exception to the norm and should have to go through a due process to be allowed to go passed that 12 months, rather than it just be a normal expectation.

“If we want to bail offenders, for example, we’ve got to go through due process, which could be a Superintendent, or it could be a magistrate,” Steve said.

“It seems to me that the IOPC doesn’t have anything like that strict recourse when they’re allowing cases to go on and on for ages. That needs to be changed.”