Police watch

Chaman Salhan's letter (see [2000] Gazette, 29 June, 18) calls for the creation of a database on allegations of police misconduct to enable practitioners to access relevant material about police officers' pasts.

He correctly points out how difficult it can be to secure information concerning an officer's history.

It is precisely for these reasons that Defendant's Information Services (DIS) was established in 1995, following the infamous Operation Jackpot investigation into Stoke Newington police.

DIS began from a pooling of information from lawyers and Hackney Community Defence Association.

A small group set to work on writing software, registering with data protection and addressing legal constraints.

We established a system whereby any solicitor with concerns about an officer can submit a search inquiry form giving details of the case with which they are dealing.

We check the officer's name against the database and advise if any information of relevance is registered with us.

We charge to provide reports on officers and this helps to cover the cost of providing the service.

All new inquiries are immediately registered for future reference.Growing as we did from concerns about policing in Hackney, east London, DIS remains London biased, but we are currently attempting to expand into a national service.

Unfortunately, the service is still known only to a small percentage of those who might wish to use it, but hopefully this letter will assist in publicising our work.

Although DIS does charge for providing reports, the search facility is free and DIS is not a profitable business.

We rely on the co-operation and assistance of solicitors in registering cases with us and are constantly limited by lack of funds.

In order to develop as a national service, we will need solicitors, such as Mr Salhan, to help us register the many hundreds of new cases involving officers from forces other than the Metropolitan Police.

Anyone with cases where police misconduct is alleged should contact us for registration or search forms.

Russell Miller, Defendants' Information Services, London