Revealed: Nearly 200 ex-police work at ‘independent’ police watchdog

Nearly 200 former police officers and staff members now work at the independent watchdog that is supposed to monitor their old forces, data seen by openDemocracy reveals.

The majority of the 192 ex-police officers and ‘civilians’ – meaning other non-frontline police workers – are concentrated in the operations teams that handles investigations into alleged police misconduct and has the power to recommend sanctions.

According to the IOPC’s most recent staff diversity report, a quarter of staff (136 out of 544) in the IOPC’s two operations divisions previously held roles in the police force, either as officers or police civilians. One of the divisions was tasked with investigating the actions of police in the wake of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

The IOPC had a total staff of 1,069 as of 31 March 2023, meaning ex-police make up 18% of the workforce – a slight fall from the 22% recorded in 2010, although overall numbers are significantly higher today.

It will add to misgivings about the effectiveness of the watchdog, whose investigations last year resulted in 137 misconduct proceedings and 37 criminal cases being launched against police officers – out of a total 5,400 matters referred to the IOPC, according to its own statistics. (The majority of referrals were kicked back to police forces to investigate themselves, with the IOPC itself completing 419 investigations.)*

Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg died in Brixton police station in August 2008 after prolonged restraint by Metropolitan Police officers while in the midst of a mental health crisis, said she was “fuming” at the number of ex-police officers working in the IOPC.

Ex-police officers playing a role in investigating her brother’s case was a key issue for Rigg as she went up against the watchdog, then called the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The IPCC became the IOPC in 2018 following changes to the Policing and Crime Act 2017.

The officers involved in her brother’s death were accused of failing to spot the signs that the musician was dealing with poor mental health and treating him accordingly. They were also alleged to have used excessive force when restraining him, and giving false evidence to the IPCC.

Rigg believes the police watchdog failed to interview officers quickly enough while the incident was still fresh in their minds. First accounts from the officers were not taken until six months after her brother’s death. She told openDemocracy that this had led to a failure within the IPCC’s initial investigation to get an understanding of the circumstances leading to the 40-year-old’s death. She also believes this delay in interviews left police officers with time to collude and get their stories straight, something they denied.

At a misconduct hearing in 2019, more than a decade after Sean died, four out of the five officers involved were accused of lying about what had happened in order to mask their behaviour to the IOPC. All five officers were cleared.

Even when you have ample evidence, families have to fight for decades

Rigg, who has since spent the past 15 years campaigning for justice for her brother, asked: “What has actually changed? I meet families all the time and they have the same concerns that I do.”

She added: “There is no justice. None at all. Even when you have ample evidence, families have to fight for decades – only 15 years for me, which is relatively short time, compared to other families like the Daniel Morgan family, the Hillsborough families, the Lawrence family.

“They are definitely corrupt. And they are definitely racist. I make no apology in saying that because that is my personal experience. Working very closely with so many families over the 15 years, they all feel exactly the same thing. This is not a coincidence. This is real.”

Mina Smallman, whose daughters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry were murdered in 2020, has called the IOPC “the three blind monkeys”. Police officers were convicted of misconduct in a public office after taking photographs of her daughters’ bodies and sharing them on WhatsApp – but the IOPC found their actions were not a result of bias, which Smallman does not believe.

Public confidence in the police and in the complaints system remains low. Just last month, 64-year-old ex-IOPC chief Michael Lockwood was charged with offences of rape and indecent assault against a girl under the age of 16.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, the watchdog received a complaint accusing police in Croydon of racially profiling a Black woman who was wrongly suspected of bus fare evasion, handcuffed in front of her child, and referred to by one of the arresting officers as a “daft cow”. It has also emerged that the Met is under investigation by the IOPC after a 30-year-old man died following police contact after being arrested in Croydon last week.

* Updated 28 July 2023: This story originally stated that 68 misconduct proceedings had been launched out of a total 71,967 complaints, citing an IOPC report for 2021/22. These figures in fact related to complaints made directly to police forces, not to complaints made to the IOPC. We are happy to correct the record and apologise for any confusion.