THE vast majority of complaints against police officers are not upheld and changing the way investigations are carried out could subvert a currently fair and balanced process, according to South Yorkshire Police Federation.<\/p>\n
Chair Steve Kent was responding to an announcement by the Home Office that it intends to launch a \u201ctargeted review of police dismissals to raise standards and confidence in policing across England and Wales\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Home Office says the review is intended to ensure the system is more effective in removing officers who are not fit to serve the public.<\/p>\n
Steve said that rooting out corrupt officers is essential, but that innocent officers are being unfairly tarnished.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe vast majority of complaints against police officers are either not upheld, vexatious and malicious in their intent, or they\u2019re grossly incorrect.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo any perception that thousands of complaints against police officers should result in dismissal is so far from the line, it\u2019s absolutely ridiculous.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow there\u2019s nobody out there who wants to get rid of corrupt officers more than other officers ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the Government is trying to do here by stealth or by suggestion is to almost subvert the process and summarily dismiss officers, or retry officers when they\u2019re simply not happy with a verdict made by independent, legally qualified people, who have balanced the evidence and made an appropriate, fair judgement based on the circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot keep tarnishing the 99.9% of great cops out there who are doing an unbelievable job, putting their lives on the line every day, who are made to feel absolutely rubbish by the rhetoric that they should all be ashamed of themselves because they are part of a wider corrupt culture. This is simply not true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve added that the Government failed to recognise the impact of these investigations on the mental health of officers who are ultimately found to have done nothing wrong.<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cI\u2019ve been speaking to cops every day, they are absolutely fed up of being bashed. The vast majority of our cops are heroes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make people more aware of what we do, we need to be given a voice, we need to have a voice heard. We need to hold politicians to account, we need to hold the media to account as well about what they\u2019re actually doing because it has such a detrimental effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about the mental health of officers. They\u2019re getting lambasted because of the mental health they\u2019re having to suffer from doing the job and on the breadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir mental health is also being affected by the constant negativity aimed towards them. It\u2019s almost like they\u2019re going out in the police cars, have got their heads down because they\u2019re worried that everybody has this perception of them, and it\u2019s absolutely crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Home Office said the review is likely to consider:<\/p>\n
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