Recommendation1
IOPC recommendationThe IOPC recommends that The College of Policing amend the ‘Detention and Custody’ Authorised Professional Practice (APP) to reflect Paragraph 3.4(a) of PACE Code C and the circumstances where the arresting officer is not physically present when the detainee is brought to custody.
This stems from an IOPC review following a local investigation where the suspect was arrested in their property after picking up a knife after expressing intentions to harm themselves.
The suspect dropped the knife after being pulled away by a police officer, however, was tasered for the officer’s safety as it had not been identified that they were no longer in possession of the knife.
The officers that accompanied the suspect to hospital believed that they had heard over the radio that the suspect had stepped towards the officer whilst holding the knife. This information was then relayed to the officers that took over their duties at the hospital, and was relayed to the custody sergeant, who authorised their detention based on this information.
This resulted in the suspect becoming further distressed when hearing the information being relayed by the officers during the handover in the hospital, and also believing that the relieving officers treated her differently as they likely believed that she had threatened a police officer with a knife.
Following the identification of this learning recommendation, several previous and similar learning recommendations for other forces throughout England and Wales were also identified, which appeared to suggest that the issue raised may potentially be an issue nationally, and that a broader learning recommendation may be more suitable to address the issues recognised.
The policy should outline the need for an accurate and detailed handover from the arresting officer(s) where practicable or at the earliest opportunity if it is determined that another officer(s) will be presenting the suspect to custody. This will ensure that when making the decision on whether a suspect could be detained, the custody sergeant is able to make an informed and reasonable decision, and that the details surrounding the arrest are recorded as accurately as possible.
In this situation, had the proposed procedure outlined in this recommended policy been carried out, then it is likely that the arrested person may not have experienced the distress caused and potentially not felt that officers were treating her differently.
The other learning recommendations identified were also accepted by the relevant forces, and changes were implemented organisationally to prevent similar incidents reoccurring. In the future, this recommended policy could prevent inaccurate entries on legally disclosable documents and allow custody sergeants to make more informed and reasonable decisions as to whether to authorise detention of a suspect and ensure they have been arrested for the most accurate offence. It had been confirmed by Kent police that there currently is no such policy to ensure that an accurate handover is provided to the transporting officer should they not be the arresting officer.
Accepted
Thank you for sending this recommendation to the College. We have regular contact with the IOPC about their ongoing work and clarifying points in APP to assist with their investigations. This case has come to our attention before and since this recommendation was submitted. We have revisited the COP APP (Detention and Custody) to check that there is not any content that covers this point.
Whilst there are many areas of the APP that give clear guidance on how to manage vulnerability from arrest to release (from custody), there is no clear narrative that covers the recommendation made here about the criticality of sharing (accurate and timely) information between the arresting officer, escorting officer and the custody officer from the point of arrest to the presentation at the custody desk.
There is clear evidence from meetings we have had with the IOPC and force custody leads, that forces are taking decisions (tactially and operationally) to use ‘detainee transport vans’ to simply convey arrested persons to custody from scenes. This has resulted in arresting officers handing the detainees over to escorting officers (who have had no involvement with the incident / response) to convey to custody.
As we know (from the National Decision Model), it is imperative that any information or intelligence surrounding any detained person is obtained and passed over to both the escorting officer, and subsequently the custody officer who will have to make the decision to detain or refuse. The custody officer also has to assess the risk(s) associated with any detainee that is presented before them and in the absence of key information, this can possibly lead to weaknesses in their treatment and detention care plan.
Therefore, we accept the risk on behalf of the College and will insert a section into the ‘Response, arrest and detention’ chapter of the APP to reflect the recommendation made here.