Complaint Handling Reviews

The Complaints

We have reviewed the handling of a twelve complaints, namely that:

1. on 18 December 2019 an officer failed to carry out sufficient investigations into an incident the applicant reported which involved his neighbour;

2. on the same date the same officer behaved in a threatening manner towards the applicant;

3. on the same date the same officer discriminated against the applicant by not taking into account the applicant’s mental health disability and social phobia;

4. on 31 December 2019 the same officer intimidated the applicant by slowing his police vehicle as he passed the applicant in a street;

5. a sergeant closed the applicant’s initial complaint without his agreement;

6. the same sergeant lied to the applicant, telling him that she was not a police officer;

7. the same sergeant failed to send the applicant information about the police complaints process;

8. a sergeant did not follow up on a recommendation made by Police Scotland’s Professional Standards Department regarding the incident of 18 December 2019;

9. the same sergeant unnecessarily had the applicant attend a meeting with him;

10. Police Scotland took an excessive amount of time to respond to the anti-social behaviour team at a local council;

11. Police Scotland discriminated against the applicant, because of his type of disability, when deciding what action to take against the officer who attended the incident on 18 December 2019; and

12. a sergeant lied to the applicant regarding information held on a police system.

Police Scotland’s Decision

Police Scotland upheld complaints 1 and 8 and did not uphold complaints 2 to 7 and 9 to 12.

Our Findings

We have found that Police Scotland handled complaints 1, 3 to 9, 11 and 12 to a reasonable standard but not so complaints 2 and 10.

Consequently, we have made one recommendation and identified a learning point to address the shortcomings in Police Scotland’s handling of the complaints.

In summary Police Scotland should carry out further enquiry and provide a further response in relation to complaint 10. Police Scotland should also remind officers who deal with complaints of the importance of keeping an accurate record of their contact with complainers.

Our recommendation and learning point should be completed by Police Scotland within two months of the date of this report.

Police Bodies : Police Scotland