In a four-page special marking the start of a series on the criminal justice system, Jon Robins talks to lawyers who defend the police


Behind the thin blue line of our nation’s police, there is an even thinner line of force lawyers working alongside officers up and down the country. It was 20 years ago that those lawyers held their first meeting as a separate group within the profession. ‘We barely filled the room. I reckon there were no more than a dozen of us,’ recalls John Kilbey, head of the legal department at West Midlands Police. ‘The Association of Police Lawyers now has 150 members and many forces are expanding their in-house legal capability.’


There are cultural reasons why the country’s primary law enforcement agency has not been stacked full of lawyers. ‘Prior to 1985, the legal work that was done by police forces across the country tended to relate to the prosecution of criminal offences,’ explains Sandra Pope, of Greater Manchester Police (GMP). ‘But then after 1985 when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) started, it wasn’t for the police to prosecute, and obviously they didn’t need lawyers.’ In fact, it was 13 years before Greater Manchester, which competes with West Midlands as the biggest force outside London’s Metropolitan Police, took on Ms Pope as GMP solicitor. Prior to that, most of the legal work was carried out by Salford City Council on behalf of the police authority.


Both Manchester and the West Midlands have in the region of 8,000 officers plus a further 3,000 civilian staff. There are now four lawyers at GMP and four at West Midlands, plus a further four legal executives. A number of forces, such as Suffolk, Bedfordshire and Leicestershire, have no in-house lawyers.


‘The police are brought up seeing lawyers on the other side and their first experience [of the legal profession] is dealing with defence lawyers,’ says Mr Kilbey, who has been at West Midlands for 20 years. ‘But they are a resilient and knowledgeable bunch of clients. All of them are legally trained to a degree, and have a good understanding of criminal law in the court system, and many officers are trained to degree level.’


Not surprisingly, it is the Met that boasts the largest in-house legal department with a 100-strong staff, including 42 qualified lawyers and 26 case workers. David Hamilton, director of legal services, joined the police after spending time in high street practices where he did both criminal defence work and prosecution work for the police. Was there a culture shock involved in going from private practice to a police force? Apparently not. He says that he was ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the ‘open-mindedness’ of officers. ‘I joined as a prosecuting solicitor, pre-CPS,’ he says. ‘There used to be the view of the prosecutor as right wing and the defender as the champagne liberal. It’s quite false.’


The solicitor breaks down his team’s workload into civil actions against the police (malfeasance claims, police conduct work and deaths in custody); matters relating to neighbourhood policing (such as antisocial behaviour orders, crack house closures, sex offender orders, football banning orders and proceeds of crime); public inquiries; and non-operational work, including advice and representation on employer matters. Much of the work is handled in-house but some areas, such as malfeasance work, are contracted out to panel firms, namely City firm Bircham Dyson Bell, and national firms Weightmans and Berrymans Lace Mawer.


The private practice law firm perhaps with the strongest ties to the police is national firm Russell Jones & Walker, which does much of the legal work for the 139,000 officers of the Police Federation. It is an association the firm has had going back some 50 years. Jeremy Clarke-Williams, a partner in the firm’s litigation, business and private client group, dates the relationship back to when Geoffrey Howe and Jim Callaghan were young MPs and advisers to the Police Federation in the House of Commons. The two politicians approached partner John Walker. The firm advises on personal injury claims and disciplinary matters, as well as representing members in pay negotiations, and defending officers in criminal cases.


Russell Jones is best known for its vigorous use of the libel laws in the defence of federation members. ‘The image of us that has been portrayed is that we’ll take action at the drop of a hat and that we have spent a generation bullying poor local papers and magazines into submission on libel claims without much merit. It is a long way from the truth,’ insists Mr Clarke-Williams, who is a defamation law expert. He insists that the firm is ‘very cautious’ on the federation’s behalf. ‘A libel case that goes wrong can cost huge amounts of money and we have very, very stringent risk assessment processes before we commence proceedings,’ he says.


For the coppers on the beat, and their lawyers, one of the greatest challenges is keeping up with the several hundred new criminal offences introduced by Labour since coming into office in 1997. ‘Our biggest challenge has been the introduction of the government’s “respect agenda” prefigured by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with the introduction of antisocial behaviour orders, sex offences prevention orders, football banning orders and so on,’ says Stephen Hodgson, head of the legal department at Humberside police force and former chairman of the Association of Police Lawyers. ‘They were not even thought of when I first joined the force.’


However, police lawyers also have to respond to whatever crises envelop their force, such as when Sir Michael Bichard began his inquiry into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Humberside Police was criticised over lax procedures in checking records that meant Ian Huntley was not identified as a dangerous sex offender. ‘I had to write myself off for a number of months and my colleagues had to take on the bulk of the legal work,’ Mr Hodgson says. ‘It sent shockwaves through the force and we had to have a good look at our record-keeping.


‘As an in-house lawyer, people are willing to talk to you about matters that are painful because you’re part of the team,’ he continues. ‘But you have to be careful to separate your role as legal adviser and ensure there is objectivity as well as being part of the decision-making team.’


According to Mr Hamilton, the biggest contributing factor to his team’s workload is still civil actions against the police. However, he estimates that the number of actions has been slashed by half over the past decade. Why is that? Good policing has a part to play, the lawyer replies. But he adds: ‘Legal aid and the general approach to the granting of public funding has become much more restricted and [the Legal Services Commission is looking very hard] at the merits of a case.’ He also points to the impact of the case of Thompson & Hsu v Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police [1997] 2 All ER 762, which set guidelines for the award of damages by juries in civil actions against the police. ‘Effectively, that case removed the possibility of winning the lottery through a huge payout against the police,’ he adds. Mr Hodgson reports that his force also still receives a huge number of letters before action. ‘But they don’t translate into proceedings, except in a relatively small amount of cases,’ he says. ‘We might hear of 200 potential cases a year, whereas there will only be 30 proceedings starting during any one year.’


Mr Kilbey agrees that Hsu effectively ‘put the brakes’ on much of the litigation. ‘It came at a time when police litigation was seen by the service as something of a major catastrophe and by lawyers, on the other hand, as something of a gravy train,’ he says.


All force lawyers attest to the fact that many of these cases are still run by a small number of London firms. Views on the lawyers concerned range from the respectful to the sceptical. ‘They are clearly committed with a good deal of expertise, which has both advantages and disadvantages,’ reflects Mr Hamilton. ‘How can I put this charitably?’ begins Mr Hodgson. ‘They are assiduous and uncompromising in their desire to do the best for their clients. Perhaps cases might otherwise be more easily settled because sometimes they go at it so hard they don’t see the opportunities for settling.’


Jon Robins is a freelance journalist