Complaint Handling Reviews

The Complaints

The complaints in this case arose after officers attended the applicant’s address. We have reviewed the handling of 3 complaints, namely that:

1. officers continuously thumped the applicant’s front door and rang her doorbell, which she believes was done to frighten her;
2. an officer lied to the applicant regarding the reason he rang her doorbell continuously; and
3. an officer said something similar to “your neighbours are seeing this” or “your neighbours are hearing this”, which the applicant believes was said to frighten her.

Police Scotland’s Decision

Police Scotland did not uphold any of the applicant’s complaints .

Our Findings

We have found that Police Scotland handled complaints 2 and 3 to a reasonable standard, but not so complaint. 

We have issued a single recommendation to address the shortcomings in Police Scotland’s handling of the complaints. 

Specifically, that Police Scotland obtains a further statement from Constable B, in which he is asked to address the crux of the complaint, i.e. the manner in which he rang the doorbell and knocked on the door, and whether his actions were intended to cause fear. Police Scotland should then re-assess all of the information available and provide the applicant with a fresh response detailing the outcome of this assessment and explaining why, on balance, the complaint has been upheld or not upheld. 

Our recommendation should be implemented by Police Scotland within two months of the date of this report. 
 

Police Bodies : Police Scotland