Police in England and Wales ‘evading public scrutiny’ by deleting misconduct outcomes from websites

Police forces in England and Wales have been accused of trying to “evade public scrutiny” after an Observer investigation found that the outcomes of dozens of officer misconduct cases have been deleted from their websites.

They include some of the most serious cases of criminality, including that of the serial rapist David Carrick.

An analysis of misconduct trials at 43 forces found the vast majority were either failing to publicise cases, despite a legal obligation to do so, or deleting misconduct cases from their websites after 28 days. Misconduct hearings can relate to any reason an officer is fired from the job including cases related to sexual offences or domestic violence.

The Police (Conduct) Regulations were introduced in 2020 to help forces act with “honesty and integrity”, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, in part by improving the transparency of misconduct hearings.

The law specifically calls on forces to publicise the results of misconduct hearings “as soon as practicable after the officer has been notified of the outcome of the proceedings”.

But analysis of the misconduct cases listed at every police force in England and Wales since December found that the records at 72% of forces were incomplete. Many were missing more than half or all of the misconduct outcomes.

While some forces openly declared on their sites that they removed all cases after 28 days, making use of a loophole in the regulations, in others it was less clear as to whether they had removed cases or simply failed to upload them in the first place.

On March 16, when the Observer analysed the records, 23 police forces, including some of the nation’s largest, had listed no outcomes online for 2023. Many forces listed no cases whatsoever.

Evidence from legal websites, regional news stories and other third-party sites shows that many of them have conducted misconduct hearings in that period.

The Metropolitan police was one of the worst offenders. This newspaper found records of 31 officers dealing with misconduct hearings that occurred or were publicised during the period of late November to 16 March, roughly a quarter of the number listed nationwide. However, only 17 of those were still listed on the Met’s website on 16 March, when our analysis was carried out. The 14 purged or unreleased misconduct cases included many involving serious criminal misconduct, including that of serial rapist David Carrick.

In January, a hearing at the Met found Carrick, 48, guilty of gross misconduct and fired him from the force after he had pleaded guilty at Southwark crown court to raping at least 12 women over the course of a 17-year reign of terror. He was handed 36 life sentences and must serve a minimum of 30 years in jail.

The Met confirmed to the Observer that it had removed Carrick’s case 28 days after it was uploaded on 19 January.

However, a large number of misconduct hearings that have occurred before and since Carrick’s are currently on the Met’s site, potentially making it seem to those looking at the site that his case did not happen.

“Failing to share the outcome of misconduct hearings, or removing them at best shows a lack of candour and transparency and at worst, wilful obstruction of outside scrutiny,” said Kevin Blowe, campaigns coordinator for the police reform group Netpol.

The news comes after a report last week from Baroness Casey, which labelled the Met institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. The report specially called on the capital’s main police force to crack down on rogue officers and take a tougher stance in misconduct cases.

A previous Guardian investigation found only 1% of complaints about police officers have led to formal misconduct proceedings.

“When it comes to police misconduct, it’s difficult to believe that the police are sincere about systemic change when they’re constantly trying to find ways to avoid admitting the extent of the problem and evade public scrutiny,” said Holly Bird, a research and policy officer at the police reform group Stop Watch.

Last month, an Observer investigation found one in 100 police officers faced a criminal charge last year.

The Met told this newspaper that it had recently changed its policy from publishing cases for 28 days to putting them online for three months. “This is because we want to be more transparent around misconduct as we strive to improve standards and rid the Met of those who should not be here,” a Met spokesperson said.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We expect police to be transparent when officers have fallen below the standards the public expect of them and, where required to do so by the hearing chair, forces must publish details of the outcome of each hearing for a minimum of 28 days.”