Police CorruptionDecember 2005

On 4th December 1997 the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Condon, said to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee:

I honestly believe I command the most honourable large city police service in the world. I believe that the overwhelming majority of the 27,000 men and women in the Met are honest…decent…brave. However, I do have a minority of officers who are corrupt, dishonest and unethical…they commit crimes, they neutralise evidence in important cases and they betray police operations and techniques to criminals. These bad officers sap the morale of their honest colleagues…because of their training they are aware of the tactics we use to try catch them. They are cunning, they are experienced, they are surveillance conscious. (see First report on Police & Complaints Procedure; HC258-I 15.1.98).

The Commissioner went onto say that the number of corrupt officers in his force was somewhere between 100-250.

What is corruption?

Individually most corrupt officers probably believe they are decent officers who are just making a few extra quid for themselves or levelling out the odds against the criminals. The most prevalent type of corruption appears to be so-called 'noble-cause' corruption. Noble-cause corruption is where an officer will simply lie, exaggerate or invent evidence in order to convict a suspect he 'knows' is 'well at it'. These officers who complain about seeing criminals walk free from the Courts are in truth only serving the noble cause of their own careers. But as well as noble-cause corruption there also exists just out and out bent officers selling secrets for cash, stealing evidence, bribing suspects and so on.

Causes of corruption

The award winning BBC correspondent Graeme McLagan's excellent book 'Bent Coppers' explains the facts and figures of police corruption and sheds some light on the factors which can contribute to an officer being lead astray. It's a slippery slope from noble-cause corruption to simply taking bribes or stealing money and that slope is easy to step onto if you are young impressionable, career-minded officer working within a squad of officers where bending the rules appears accepted; be one of the boys - or be on your own. That mentality contributed to the outrageous corruption that infested parts of the Flying Squad in the 1990s and, at around the same time, Kent's South East Regional Crime Squad and Stoke Newington's C.I.D. The Flying Squad corruption cases led to allegations that the Squad used to carry 'first-aid kits' in their cars. These did not contain bandages and paracetamol but instead held incriminating material which could be planted on suspects at the scene of an arrest in order to fill an evidence gap - this included the planting of guns on robbery suspects where it turned out the 'armed' robbers weren't armed after all.

Informants

Perhaps the greatest danger for all is in the field of informant handling. Informants are recognised by the Courts as a necessary and vital tool in the fight against crime. Informants are not highly regarded, they are a necessary evil. The Courts know that informants are likely to have a reason to lie but they also know that without informants and police-handlers a great many prosecutions of those accused of very serious offences would simply never take-off. The relationship between a police-handler and his informant is a delicate one. The officer receives training and understands the limits of his role; both sides can do well from the informant's information and, both officer and informant, may have motive for ensuring that what the informant says at least appears reliable. The officer has also to be very careful not to fall into crime himself. It's one thing perhaps to overlook a minor offences from a prized grass; its another to encourage the grass to be come a participating informant or to tip him off about operations which could place their happy relationship in jeopardy. Once the Serious and Organised Crime Agency starts work (at the moment due in April 2006) the situation could dramatically change as 'agents' will be permitted to offer deals to informants that the Courts will have to stick to.

My Case?

For most readers of this article police corruption stories will be an interesting diversion at best. The reality is that the vast majority of police officers are not corrupt. That is not to say they are super-humans incapable of lying and always scrupulously taking an objective view of the evidence. But that is what the trial process is there for; to see through the deceptions of witnesses, prosecution and defence, civilian and police. Juries now do believe that police officers can and do tell lies - the apparently mis-leading comments made by the present Met Chief, immediately after the shooting of an innocent Brazilian electrician in London's Underground in July, has only contributed to a readiness to refuse to accept at face value the word of a police officer. Juries know and understand that the police are human and have loyalties to colleagues and are worried about their own careers. They know that officers don't wake up in the middle of the night having nightmares about a possible mis-carriage of justice. But what if you know that your case is one of the few in the premier league - where police corruption proper has taken place and the trial process appears to be just a formality. Maybe you are guilty but face being convicted on entirely the wrong facts on evidence that has been fabricated. Maybe you're not guilty and the case is entirely concocted by officers who have convinced themselves that you were 'well at it'. In either case the Court can intervene.

Legal Arguments and stopping the case

There is really no special breed of argument particular to police corruption cases. As readers may recall from our February article the most appropriate category of legal argument where there is some sort of allegation of serious executive misconduct is abuse of process. The Court can, in exceptional cases, forbid the prosecution to prosecute a case because of the behaviour of the police/prosecution. There are many reasons why a Judge might conclude that it would not be proper for the Court's to be used to prosecute a Defendant and they all come back to the question of fairness; for example delay in bringing proceedings, manipulation of the Court's procedures, entrapment, etc etc. The prosecution would argue that the Judge could ensure fairness by, e.g. excluding parts of the evidence, or by warning the jury that the Defendant has been unable to call certain evidence because it has been destroyed - in other words anything except throw the case out before it even starts.

Public Interest Immunity (PII)

There is not enough room here to repeat the law on abuse of process applications. In any event any discussion on the topic is of limited value as each case depends on its own particular facts. The argument may be preceded by a Public Interest Immunity application. That disclosure hearing could be the be all and end all of the matter - if you don't get the material the argument will fail. In those sorts of cases it is vital to consider the many options that the Judge may have and ensure he has them in mind before seeing the prosecution in private; see for example the House of Lords sanction of the possible use of special independent counsel in some PII hearings; R v H & C [2004] 2 AC 134 (Feb. 2004).

Who is telling the truth?

Most police officers will tell you that they have seen the guilty set free many many times. They will also tell you that it is rare for them to be torn apart in cross-examination in front of the jury ; calling an officer an out and out liar is, in fact, quite a rare defence. The fact remains though that police officers are human and are fallible and serious corruption can and does take place and will always do so. If you are on the receiving end of corruption then you are in for a rough ride but hold on because the irony is that the more corruption cases that become exposed over the years the more and more the judiciary and the public are likely to accept your word over the police's.

Authors

Zafar Ali is a specialist criminal defence Barrister at 23 Essex Street Chambers in London dealing with very serious crime.

Aziz Rahman is a Solicitor- Advocate and Partner at the leading Criminal Defence firm Rahman Ravelli Solicitors, specialising in Human Rights, Financial Crime and Large Scale Conspiracies/Serious crime. Rahman Ravelli are members of the Specialist Fraud Panel.

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