Report - Police Scotland - PIRC/00287/21
The Complaints
The complaints in this case arose after the applicant and members of his family were arrested and charged with offences under section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 in relation to a neighbour dispute. We have reviewed the handling of seven complaints, namely that:
- officers failed to investigate issues of the applicant and his family being stalked;
- officers contradicted a previous assessment of incidents in February 2016, which concluded that no crime had been committed;
- officers failed to include exculpatory information in the report submitted to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS);
- officers charged the applicant’s daughter with an offence on the basis of ‘weak and unlikely evidence’;
- officers failed to investigate significant discrepancies in statements obtained from the applicant’s neighbour between February and April 2016;
- officers failed to comply with the principles of the Scottish Crime Recording Standards (SCRS); and
- the amount of time taken by Police Scotland to respond to the applicant’s complaint was excessive.
Police Scotland’s Decision
Police Scotland upheld three of the applicant’s complaints (1, 6 and 7) and did not uphold the other four (2, 3, 4 and 5).
Our Findings
We have found that Police Scotland handled six of the applicant’s complaints to a reasonable standard (1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7) but not so the other one (3).
We have made two recommendations to address the shortcomings in Police Scotland’s handling of the complaints.
Specifically, we recommend that complaint 3 is reassessed and a further response sent to the applicant. We also recommend that complaints 2 and 3 are recorded as separate complaints as they can be upheld or not independently of each other.
Our recommendations should be implemented by Police Scotland within two months of the date of this report.
Police Bodies : Police Scotland