Posted: Monday 26 April 2010
Second Scottish force called on to review Appropriate Adult Policy following complaints
Second Scottish force called on to review Appropriate Adult Policy following complaints
John McNeill, the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, has recommended that Northern Constabulary reviews its current procedures relating to the use of appropriate adults. This follows a complaint from a member of the public that the force paid insufficient attention to his disabilities during questioning.
In his report published this week, the Commissioner found that while the force's response to that complaint was reasonable, he nonetheless recommended that Northern Constabulary reviews its current procedures against guidance produced by the Scottish Appropriate Adult Network and published by the Scottish Government in 2007. This follows a similar recommendation made to Central Scotland Police last month.
In the same review the Commissioner called on Northern Constabulary to apologise to the individual for the way it handled four out of the six complaints he had made.
Commissioner John McNeill said: "My role is to drive up standards in police complaints handling and by highlighting areas anywhere in that process where I believe improvements could be made, I will speak out and I expect the forces to respond accordingly.
The 2007 guidance provides a framework that I would like all forces to work within to ensure consistency in how they approach the issue of vulnerable adults and appropriate adult policy."
While accepting that the "inadequacies" in handling these complaints may be historical and acknowledging recent assurances by Northern Constabulary that new processes were in place, the Commissioner concluded his report saying that he intended to monitor the effect of these new processes on their handling of complaints.