The Independent Police Complaints Commission deals with the fall-out from such controversial incidents as the Menezes shooting in London. Jonathan Rayner meets the head of its legal team


John Tate, head of legal at the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), reckons that his job is not so very different from private practice. This raises question as to what kind of private practice he has in mind. Last year alone, the IPCC helped investigate the deaths of 118 people who had died following contact with the police.



In the same period, it was involved with the 26,268 complaints recorded against the police and the 2,140 appeals that were heard concerning the way the police had dealt with complaints. For good measure, during those same 12 months, the 23-strong IPCC legal team also applied for 75 judicial reviews to clarify the law on some of the issues it had come across in the course of its investigations.



This high volume of activity is bread and butter to Mr Tate, a veteran of the Bloody Sunday inquiry on which he served for five of its seven years. Bloody Sunday is the name given to a day in January 1972 on which 14 protesters in Northern Ireland died when British soldiers opened fire in, they said, self-defence. Mr Tate says: ‘We interviewed around 3,000 witnesses for that inquiry and had oral testimony from 1,000 – that’s a huge body of evidence.’ He adds that witnesses to Bloody Sunday were tracked ‘from the Arctic Circle to South Africa, and from Japan to the east coast of America’. The inquiry has still to publish its report, although Mr Tate says that it might do so ‘next year’.



Prior to the inquiry, he was with the Government Legal Service from 1978, serving stints with Customs & Excise (as it then was) and the Serious Fraud Office.



The IPCC has been operational since 1 April 2004, although Mr Tate joined it as part of the set-up team in September 2003. It was created by the Police Reform Act 2002 as a non-departmental public body to investigate ‘serious incidents or allegations of misconduct’ by police in England and Wales.



‘Serious incidents’ are those involving death or injury. ‘Serious allegations’ include corruption, racism, perverting the course of justice, and accusations made against senior officers.



A 17-strong commission, comprising a chairman, deputy chairman and 15 regional commissioners, runs the IPCC. The commissioners are the public and independent face of the IPCC and must, by law, never have worked for the police service in any capacity. Some 400 staff support their work, including the solicitors, barristers and others who make up the legal team.

Mr Tate says: ‘The team comes from an eclectic range of backgrounds – private practice, the Government Legal Service, teaching the law. But that’s how it should be because, apart from conveyancing and divorces, we do pretty well everything you could ask a lawyer to do.’



One key area is advising on the application of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which attempts to define the delicate balance between the powers of the police and the rights and freedoms of the public. The Act’s codes of practice (most recently revised 31 December 2005) provide the core framework of police powers and safeguards for stop and search, arrest, detention, investigation, identification and interviewing detainees – all the public-facing activities, in fact, that are most likely to attract complaints.



In the same vein, the legal team answers queries from investigators and caseworkers who are looking into the basis for complaints, but are uncertain about points of law or procedures. The team also liaises with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to decide whether a complaint merits being pursued through the courts. And where appropriate, it tests the law with judicial reviews.



Mr Tate says the IPCC, in common with other public sector bodies, has experienced a recent surge in complaints as people become more litigious. He says: ‘What’s more, if complainants don’t like the outcome, they can take it further – it’s easy and cheap at just £50.’



He adds that there is anecdotal evidence that some firms of solicitors are using judicial review challenges to force forward issues in which they have a financial or political interest. In support of this assertion, he cites a recent conference of British and Irish ombudsmen where this topic was discussed. He refuses, however, to be drawn on names.



On less contentious ground, Mr Tate says: ‘There are 400 staff at the IPCC and five regional offices, so the legal team is kept quite busy on internal organisational matters. For example, we advise policy-makers, do commercial contract work, help the HR people with employment matters, and arbitrate or litigate as required.



‘We’re the in-house legal team, in a word, and there’s rarely a dull moment because few days are ever the same.’



Mr Tate describes the IPCC’s relationship with the police as ‘by and large good. We keep a respectable distance, but the police see the positive benefits of an independent and experienced body such as ours – not least when it comes to dealing with the vexatious complainants who generate a disproportionate amount of work’.



This good relationship was sorely tested by the London bombings of 7 July 2005 when 52 people died. Two weeks later, while tensions were still high, young Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police officers at Stockwell tube station. It was, it transpired, a tragic case of mistaken identity.



Mr Tate says: ‘The incident attracted huge and continuing media interest. A very experienced team led by [IPCC chairman] Nick Hardwick investigated and I was the main legal adviser on the case. We worked hard to maintain good working relationships with the family’s solicitors, the CPS and the police, but things were not helped when a colleague chose to leak material to the press – we’re a young organisation and were already showing cracks at the seams.’



Security procedures at the IPCC have since been tightened. The IPCC is still not out of the woods, however, because last month it controversially announced that the frontline firearms and surveillance officers involved in the Menezes shooting would not face disciplinary proceedings, although – the announcement added somewhat lamely – one of them might have to receive management advice in relation to action he took after the incident.



The IPCC added that a decision on whether to discipline four more senior officers would not be made until after a case against the Metropolitan Police – for allegedly breaking health and safety regulations – comes to court in October. There was much outrage in the media following this news, with interviews from pressure groups and Mr de Menezes’ family. Mr Tate, however, is unable to comment because the matter is awaiting trial.



The IPCC has been operating now for a little over three years and, as Mr Hardwick wrote in its most recent annual report, the time has come to focus less on the work it has done and more on the difference it has made.



Already it is something of a role model for other jurisdictions, with Mr Tate soon to visit Turkey to help draft legislation similar to that which set up the IPCC and to assist the country’s succession to the EU.



He observes: ‘There is a worldwide blossoming of police complaints bodies and we should do everything we can to encourage it. Dealing with complaints in an open way helps ensure the right balance between police powers and civil liberties.’