POLICE conduct investigations are still taking far too long and need an overhaul, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
Steve Kent, Federation Chair, said: \u201cWe are still seeing occasions where it takes way too long.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IOPC should be brave enough to admit that they don\u2019t have the resources to investigate some of their cases. It\u2019s always been my view that the complex investigations should be left to the professionals and that\u2019s the police officers with IOPC oversight. That, for me, is a direction we should be going in unless there\u2019s evidence of collusion or suggestion that it\u2019s inappropriate that force investigates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should leave it to the professionals to deal with it, the professionals being our anti-corruption units and our professional standards, and they should be supervising it. That\u2019s the only way I think ultimately we\u2019re going to get time limits under control.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course there are going to be complex cases that are going to take a long time. I get it. But we\u2019ve had examples of cases which are ver simple misconduct matters that have taken way over a year, and it\u2019s just not good enough frankly. So we need to see action on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Independent Office for Police Conduct admitted that more can be done at the Police Federation of England and Wales Conference earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Director-General Michael Lockwood said: \u201cWe don\u2019t want a police officer under a cloud longer than they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n