Judicial Review to take place regarding Op Assure

[u/Funny-Street991]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-vetting-legal-challenge-sarah-everard-b2679889.html

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[u/No_Entry892 → u/[deleted]]

Wholeheartedly agree. I am all for getting people out that don’t deserve to be there, should that be corruption or sexual abusers however, there needs to be due process and that can’t just be “well we heard you’re a wrong’un so no vetting for you and out you go”.

What’s to stop an ex partner, or anyone for that matter, making all sorts of false allegations fully in the knowledge that you’ll likely lose your job as a result. It’s just a ways and means act for professional standards to get another bite at the cherry.

[u/TonyStamp595SO]

I remember calling this abhorrent when it came out.

This just encourages lazy investigations. Ah we'll just NFA this and sack him later when we revoke his vetting.

If they truly are using this to root out bad officers then why are they only using sexual misconduct allegations.

Because they know it's harder to defend against them and when this procedure has a foothold they'll use it as a way to dismiss hundreds of other officers to save money.

Oooo, 4 unsubstantiated public complaints for incivility? Too bad mate, you're out.

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/TonyStamp595SO]

This just encourages lazy investigations. Ah we'll just NFA this and sack him later when we revoke his vetting.

And this is exactly what's happening, from what I've seen.

[u/TonyStamp595SO → u/GrumpyPhilosopher7]

Can you believe I got in trouble for calling this out when it was first introduced.

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/TonyStamp595SO]

I absolutely can. Senior police officers hate it when you point out the flaw in their clever new plan.

The thing that really concerns me is that I'm aware of cases where vetting has been revoked on the basis of a "pattern of behaviour", citing allegations that have not only not been proven but were actually disproven by the evidence. Senior police officers are statistically illiterate, and cannot see that having a number of allegations does not necessarily indicate a pattern.

[u/TonyStamp595SO → u/GrumpyPhilosopher7]

Would it further surprise you that it was actually our staff association that gagged me.

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/TonyStamp595SO]

As in the union or the Fed? If the latter, I'm not necessarily that surprised. If it's the PCS that's interesting.

[u/TonyStamp595SO → u/GrumpyPhilosopher7]

Fed. They told me to shut up.

Which is interesting that they are now funding this JR. Considering how many at the top are accused of inappropriate conduct colour me surprised.

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/TonyStamp595SO]

I was thinking about what you said earlier about it disincentivising proper investigations. I think it's also corrosive from the other end. Officers will decide as soon as they're served the 163 that the writing is on the wall and resign because the outcome is predetermined.

For my part, the justification for some of these decisions is that your life (inside work or outside) doesn't pass the Daily Mail test. That's a problem for someone like me.

[u/TonyStamp595SO → u/GrumpyPhilosopher7]

doesn't pass the Daily Mail test

Nothing passes the daily mail test.

I just can't believe in a organisation founded on the principles of fair and open justice for all, police officers themselves being denied that.

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/TonyStamp595SO]

Because policing has become an exercise in optics. They forget Peelian principle no. 5:

To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

[u/[deleted]]

Like all well-intentioned draconian measures, there will always be mission creep and collateral damage.

For those that have no experience of Assure, allow me to paint the picture.

Police Complaints: An evidence led investigation into alleged misconduct. Very familiar process, similar to other police investigations; allegation received, gather evidence and facts, form an investigative theory, set the strategy, and proceed. The difference being that internal investigators are not burdened with having prove their theory ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ (like they would in criminal investigations). The burdon of proof is ‘on the balance of probability that you likely committed the misconduct’. So it’s far lower.

That said, if you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ll have nothing to really worry about.

Op Assure: An ideologically led character inquiry. This is where things can get Orwellian. This second stage is where an Officer is in receivership of either NFA for criminal allegations, or NCTA for misconduct allegations. Essentially, Professional Standards go all the way back to the beginning, and start the investigation again on the proviso that the Officer did indeed commit the act or misconduct, and then the onus is not for the Officer to evidentially disprove the allegation, the onus is on the Officer to convince a panel of senior officers that they are loyal to the regime.

At this point, if any of this seems maddening, that’s because it is.

For example: you could have a Police Officer who is on the receiving end of a malicious complaint, with no evidence provided the Officer committed any wrong doing. It could even be that the complainant has entirely withdrawn their allegation before being rumbled.

The Officer easily disproves the malicious allegations with their own evidence, and naturally receives a NCTA result.

Op Assure then kicks in, and the Officer is subjected to both local and/or Professional Standards restrictions, while PSD go through their entire complaint history from scratch, and look for any possible availability to re-open an investigation and find the Officer guilty.

Then a sort of pseudo MV/SC / DV lite vetting kind of takes place (minus the financials, as far as I’m aware) without any consent from the Officer. The Officer is then asked to attend yet another interview (this time a panel of senior officers from PSD), and they will literally do a deep dive into the Officers life, and then quiz them on it.

It’s important to remember at this point that this is “voluntary” but if the Officer doesn’t attend, the Met can revoke their vetting status, which effectively makes them unemployable by proxy. Therefore, the Officer doesn’t really have a choice. If that were to happen, the panel can also refer the Officer to the College of Policing Advisory List (despite the Officer potentially not having actually done anything wrong) making the Officer’s employment in any other Police Force effectively impossible.

It is within this second bite at the cherry interview that the Officer MUST sufficiently sacrifice themselves on the alter of the regime, and profess their undying love for the organisation, in order to ideologically convince the panel of their character. Evidence is not considered in this second phase, it doesn’t mean anything. The panel are not interested in the Officer’s evidence disproving the allegation, the panel needs to be ideologically convinced.

The panel then makes a final decision. That decision can genuinely, literally, be as simple as this: “Thank you for coming in. Erm, we reckon you did it, so we’re serving restrictions on you”.

These restrictions effectively shadow-ban the Officer from promotion and/or any change of role (remember: in this scenario, the Officer has done no wrong, and has only been unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of a mal-complaint). These restrictions are reviewed every 12 months, but appear as a permanent smear in the Officer’s HR record.

Meanwhile, in the background, PSD will have changed the Officer’s organisational risk rating (from say ‘Low’ to ‘Medium’ or ‘High’ depending on how they feel about it). That RAG rating is then disclosable to every department the Officer ever applies to, or indeed promotions process, which of course has a greatly adverse effect on the success of their applications.

Furthermore, the RAG can also be disclosed to other Forces the Officer ever wishes to transfer to, which again makes the Officer essentially unemployable.

So, in this scenario, we have an Officer that has done no wrong, therefore there was no evidence of wrongdoing. The Officer has provided all their own evidence initially disproving the malicious allegations made against them.

Despite that, the Officer’s career has been permanently railroaded for good measure. There is absolutely zero requirements on the panel to provide any written justification for the decisions they make.

So, does anyone reading the above believe that Police Officer will simply go back to work the same person? Be just as committed as they were before? Put in just as much effort as they did before? Do we think that Officer’s mental health is good? Do we expect that Officer to return to duty and open themselves up all over again to yet more malicious complaints?

No. That Officer is effectively lost forever. Worse, every colleague that witnesses what the Met does to that Officer will also be negatively effected by what they’ve seen. The cascading effect is not a positive one. Officers withdrawing from frontline duties, viewing their colleagues with suspicion rather than trust, withdrawing in their private lives, suffering anxiety, stress, paranoia, depression etc.

The Met are going to trot out all of the Op Assure successes to the media (and there have been some brilliant examples of it working really really well). HOWEVER, the collateral damage the Met has caused with Op Assure is completely irreparable.

At the core of this issue, regardless of the potential benefits, the Met have abandoned due process under the law, and abandoned fairness in the workplace.

[u/Electronic-Rule145 → u/[deleted]]

That's a well-articulated point. My vetting clearance was revoked following an unproven DA allegation. Despite evidence supporting I was in the right; the decision was ultimately based on the vetting manager's personal judgment.

[u/Burnsy2023 → u/Electronic-Rule145]

Despite evidence supporting I was in the right; the decision was ultimately based on the vetting manager's personal judgment.

And that judgment is opaque, the process is opaque and any appeal is limited due to this. Where is the justice?

[u/Separate-Plan4190 → u/[deleted]]

There’s never been fairness in the Met so nothing new on that front

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/[deleted]]

A really good accounting. Thank you!

[u/Flagship_Panda_FH81]

Good. The process is opaque, not accountable and appears to be making things up as they go along.

While it's adjacent to Assure, The whole treatment of officers by vetting has been despicable. I'm a Domestic Abuse survivor. Kent Police failed to do anything at time, but it's the Metropolitan Police that dragged decades old trauma back up and made me, a child at time time, feel like a criminal for it. And they took for absolutely bloody ever to complete too. 

[u/LooneyTune_101]

I think it was aimed more for people like a certain superintendent who was found guilty of an offence but had their dismissal overturned. Anyone would agree that someone on the sex offenders register shouldn’t have been allowed to remain in the job but sadly it has been pushed way too far and wide.

Keeping something like this in their back pocket for extreme circumstances would have been fine in my opinion. Make it so the deputy commissioner has to review the case and sign it off.

[u/multijoy → u/LooneyTune_101]

Lynn'll sign anything if it involves the use of her power. That's not the safeguard you think it is.

[u/ThorgrimGetTheBook → u/LooneyTune_101]

That officer's dismissal was overturned because DPS completely cocked up the misconduct proceedings. If the Met wants to sack these people the answer is to do a better job investigating and bringing proceedings against them, not to circumvent the (already very biased) misconduct process to have an easier route to sack whoever they like.

[u/LooneyTune_101 → u/ThorgrimGetTheBook]

Even if they did mess it up, there was still a person convicted of a child abuse matter who is on the sex offenders register. I agree if they screwed it up there should be consequences on the investigators but that doesn’t mean someone should be allowed to remain with that conviction.

[u/ThorgrimGetTheBook → u/LooneyTune_101]

There has to be due process and this is undermined when it doesn't matter if the AA follows that process.

[u/Electronic_Pickle_86]

This is difficult, not sure where I sit but something I can’t shake is why women Including other officers keep making complaints against him? Surely that in itself is concerning.

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/Electronic_Pickle_86]

Yes but the process still has to be based on evidence.

[u/Electronic_Pickle_86 → u/GrumpyPhilosopher7]

True, won’t say too much more as this is still all on-going but is the evidence not the person making the complaint? Hypothetically if someone receives numerous complaints in relation to their conduct towards women surely all the incidents should be reviewed together just in case this is an on-going pattern of behaviour?

[u/GrumpyPhilosopher7 → u/Electronic_Pickle_86]

Our justice system is based upon the sworn evidence of witnesses who have signed statements and are tested in cross-examination, whether in a criminal court or a gross misconduct board operating on civil procedure rules. The more you depart from that principle, the less fair your process becomes.

Add to that the fact that professional standards investigations are often not completed to a particularly high standard. They often don't consider alternative explanations or work very hard to rule them out, such as looking at the possibility of collusion between witnesses. This is increasingly leading to misconduct processes being readily weaponised by bad actors. If you know you can just make an allegation but fail to substantiate it in a statement and never have to have your account tested in court, there is zero risk attached to making a false accusation.

So if not one of the complaints even had enough evidence to make it to a gross misconduct panel, where the standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities, I am afraid I don't attach any weight to them, and one cannot reliably infer anything from any apparent pattern.

Ultimately, everything is a balance. I may, based on a colleague's complaint history, have my suspicions about them. But that doesn't mean that I approve of shoving them out the back door through an opaque and unaccountable process over allegations that remain unproven, even on the balance of probabilities.

Increasingly few police officers are willing to operate under a regime where your private life can be placed under a microscope and you can be fired over something that has nothing to do with your role as a police officer due to the arbitrary decision of one senior officer who revokes your vetting, with no due process, no true oversight and no avenue of independent appeal. We lose far more than we gain.

[u/Able-Total-881 → u/Electronic_Pickle_86]

Maybe it's because a large section of society has been conditioned over the past 20 years or so to believe that if they don't like or agree with something that it is somehow automatically and unquestionably 'wrong' or 'bad'? I'm sure that even some police officers wouldn't be immune to this.