To think this is outrageous from the Police?

[Idstillratherbepaddleboarding]

I’ve posted before about this incident that happened to DH so I’ll keep it brief and vague for background.

DH was assaulted by some coked up idiot on NYE 23/4, whole acting as a volunteer for our village NYE party. He was knocked unconscious, his nose was broken and he couldn’t eat for a week as his mouth was so badly swollen.

It took 4 months for the Police to “ask the man to come in for a voluntary interview” and by that point, he’d concocted a story that it was self defence. It wasn’t, I was a witness but unfortunately the place where he says DH “tried to throw and punch at him but missed” was the only place not covered by CCTV.

Anyway, it took 9 months for the case to go to the CPS, where it was thrown out. In the mean time the case was so badly investigated that the officer in charge ended up losing his acting Sergeant role and we made a formal complaint. Our main concern was that he’d offend again and yes, he has. It literally could have been one of those cases where one punch killed DH as he punched him onto concrete.

TBH, we’ve made our peace with the injustice but a few days ago DH received a letter to say that the complaint has not yet been investigated due to high demand in the department and they’ve no idea when it will be but they’ll keep us updated.

It’s been 20 months since the assault and probably over a year since the complaint was made. TBH, we’d forgotten all about it.

We only made the complaint to try to get some me progress on the case at the time, so it’s irrelevant now anyway. But what’s the point in having a complaints process if it takes so long for them to investigate?

I get that the Police are under enormous pressure, we all are in the public sector but come on!

I’m sorry this happened. Sounds awful!
You could write to your MP or ask to attend a surgery to complain about this.

Thank you, I did at the time and she tried to help, she’s a fantastic MP but ultimately all she could get were apologies from the Police. Even the CPS wrote to DH to say they believed him but they couldn’t proceed because of that one lie that wasn’t covered by CCTV. If they’d have gone and arrested him the next day, he wouldn’t have had time to make up the story. I doubt he even remember what happened due to the cocaine 😡.

It just feels a bit insulting to receive this letter after all this time!

I think we need to start agitating for a return of the police force. They have been disempowered and undermined at every turn. Really time for Law and Order to be respected again.

i am sorry this happened to you and your DH. It must be incredibly frustrating to not have resolution after this time. Are you more concerned about the police complaint (and thus could escalate to IOSCO?), or the lack of resolution against the offender? is your request that they reopen the case or Victim right of review?

I agree, I bet the man and his mate who had kicked off all the trouble in the first place and got a caution for injuring children had a good laugh about it all!

Neither TBH, we had pretty much put it all behind us! We were just shocked to receive the letter to say it hadn’t even been looked at yet. We took it as far as we could at the time although I don’t remember exactly, I know we appealed the CPS decision and got a long letter back basically saying they believed us but tough luck!

I think that they would put themselves under far less pressure by acting straight away, putting investigations off is what significantly increases their work load. Not that I believe that they always tend to doing much investigation anyway, I think that very often they simply run with who they choose to believe. Prejudice might well play a part here.

I agree totally. DH is a retired police officer who cannot believe the state of the police force now.

Perhaps some of the money wasted on totally pointless "Police and Crime Commissioners" could be applied to actually police work.

Another worthless "reform" we have to thank that useless piece of work Cameron for.

100% it would have been easier for them to deal with straight away. They knew who did it and they “ran off” to the local pubs of which we only have one so a quick check in there would have found them that night. I think the OIC ended up putting it off and then new jobs built up on top. Plus they kept moving him to other stations but keeping the job with him 🤷‍♀️.

I’m quite certain the Police believed DH, in fact the one that came round to take a statement even said he’d send the offender to prison if he could but they couldn’t get it past the CPS, which is probably as frustrating for the Police as it is for us but if they’d have arrested him straight away, he wouldn’t have had chance to make up his story.

But in the UK they now have all kinds of special God like powers.

But that police work which concerns serving sentence based upon unestablished allegation we can do without, and more police doing more work rather scares me.

Shame the violent thug didn't simply misgender your DH, 5 Armed Police Officers might have turned up straight away

They do seem to have lost sight of their purpose.

I remember your original post, OP. I think, at least. You were dealing with social repercussions weren’t you? People pretending nothing had happened.

If he’s done it again since, has that eased off?

Escalate it and take it to the police ombudsman (PCC). You could take out a civil claim and find a no win, no fee injury lawyer

I can only imagine they are absolutely flooded with complaints and haven't the manpower to get through them quick enough. Or are choosing to understaff the complaints team or deliberately make the process long winded. To put people off? Sounds useless.

I'm glad your husband didn't suffer permanent injury.

In the UK that would be the IOPC (Independent Police Complaints) and they would forward your concern to your local police complaints division. It would likely finish up to be dealt with by those police officers that you are complaining about. If you have a local independent police complaints office it might be worthwhile. Some areas are just switching over, .It would likely take at least a year to be processed. The IOPC only seem interested in engaging big time complaints themselves,, those that are of a national concern.

Just on the complaint OP, that's appalling. What should happen is that it's logged, a recording decision made under the PRA 2002, and you be contacted with a few days to take your account.

I would be HOPPING if I found a complaint hadn't been dealt with in a year.

Your PCC is both the review (appeal) body for most complaints, and has a statutory duty to hold the Chief Constable to account for complaints performance. I would suggest contacting them in the first instance.

Sometimes if a complaint is found to be very serious and requires misconduct proceedings, those can take a year plus, not sure if that's the issue?

Have you complained to the force itself or the IOPC?

@BettyBobble the letters says Police Professional Standards Department, so I’m guessing the Police themselves. I don’t think there’s any point taking it further now so much time has passed as we only wanted it dealt with, not for anyone to get in trouble!

@PrizedPickledPopcorn sort of so it could be me! The incident took place at our local village hall where DH is a trustee so the family of the offenders tried to make out it was all the Hall’s fault. Things seem to be back to normal now and everyone knows they are scum bags but I think that NYE will go down in local legend! Not much else goes on around here 🤣.

@Hoppinggreen they sent eight non-armed officers in four cars who still couldn’t find them in the local pub 🙈🙈.

I disagree, in the UK they are very much over powered, under their NEW special powers they serve as both judge and jury. Yes, "sentences" of up to two years are served just at their say so, and with fines of up to £2000 to back them up. .