Twenty Police Officers a month have been barred from holding police jobs for life after a new register of those deemed unfit for the service was introduced last year. The names of 175 former officers have been added to the “disapproved register” for various serious disciplinary offences, according to the Times.
Of those on the register, 89 have been found guilty of gross misconduct by a tribunal while 86 have resigned or retired before disciplinary proceedings were completed. In the past, resigning before the tribunal was completed could leave an officer free to re-join a Police force in the future. This was seen as a major weakness in the system.
Although the names of those on the list are not published there are details of what they did. Four of the constables were involved in the notorious “plebgate” affair, in which government Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell was falsely accused of calling Police at Downing Street “plebs”. The accusations led to him being forced out of office.
Three officers from Hampshire were placed on the list for incidents of sexist and homophobic bullying. Two from Manchester had their names added for passing confidential information to a drug dealer. One of the officers was sacked and another resigned.
Ninety percent of the officers concerned got into disciplinary problems due to complaints from other Police officers. Alex Marshall, chief executive of the College of Policing, said: “We are learning more about the areas where some officers are failing… It is encouraging to see that wrongdoing is mostly reported by other officers who consider such behaviour unacceptable. We will build what we learn into improving who we recruit and who we keep in policing.”
The introduction of the register is one of a raft of reforms the Home Secretary Theresa May is bringing in. She introduced the register after it was revealed that Simon Harwood, the Police Officer who killed newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, should not have been in the Police at all.
Harwood had resigned from London’s Metropolitan Police before he could be disciplined for a road rage incident. Almost immediately, he rejoined the Met as a civilian member of staff, and then became a Constable again with Surrey Police. He was later transferred back to the Met as a Constable, effectively meaning that he had ducked the misconduct charge and got his old job back.
In the future, the Home Secretary may release the names of those on the disapproved register. She is also planning to make disciplinary hearings open to the public, and enact a ban on officers resigning from the Police before hearings are complete.
Major-General Clive Chapman, formerly of the Parachute Regiment, is to begin reviewing the police disciplinary system next week and will report to the home secretary in September.
Changes to the way officers are disciplined are being forced on the Police as a result of the way they are viewed with suspicion by the Conservatives. In the past, the two had enjoyed good relations, but those relations have been all but destroyed by a series of incidents including the Met Police lobbying for the last Labour government and the Plebgate affair.
As previously reported on Breitbart London the Police’s Trade Union, the Police Federation, has also been forced to accept major reforms. The Police as a whole are increasingly seen by the Conservatives as yet another left-wing public sector institution.
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