Recommendation 5

The sorry story of Operation Midland and subsequent inquiries into how it was conducted demonstrates why a robust complaints and conduct system is necessary if the public is to be confident that police officers behave properly and will be held to account and suitably sanctioned if they do not. Lady Brittan’s account of how she— the wife of a wrongly suspected man not herself suspected of any crime—was treated is salutary. Those investigating potential police misconduct should be ashamed of leaving any vulnerable person feeling as if they are, themselves, a suspect. The families of the now-deceased Lord Brittan and Lord Bramall, as well as the former MP Harvey Proctor, have been left feeling that no-one has been sanctioned for the mistakes identified by Sir Richard Henriques in the Operation Midland inquiry Police Conduct and Complaints 47 and its aftermath. That is a result that satisfies no-one and does nothing to improve confidence that officers will be held to account when an investigation goes quite so badly wrong. (Paragraph 34) Structure and operation of the police complaints process