Complaint Handling Reviews

The Complaints

We have reviewed the handling of eleven complaints, namely that:

1. A police officer failed to note an additional statement which was pertinent to the investigation;
2. A police officer charged the applicant with a counter allegation of assault when he had clear evidence to show that she did not do it;
3. A police officer used the applicant’s partner as a witness in the case after asking the applicant for permission to do so which she declined;
4. A police officer submitted a second statement to the court which the applicant had not provided;
5. A police officer lost or failed to submit to the court CCTV footage from a specific nightclub which was relevant to the applicant’s serious assault case;
6. A police officer deliberately failed in the applicant’s serious assault case which resulted in a ‘Not Proven’ verdict due to him being related to the accused;
7. The police officers who prepared a copy of the CCTV evidence for court did not provide a copy of the footage which included the “main event” or footage of the assault;
8. The applicant was incorrectly identified as an ‘accused’ as opposed to a ‘witness’ for a crime report relating to an assault on 18 December 2019 and that this was disclosed to a defence lawyer who used it in cross examination to discredit the applicant’s evidence;
9. The applicant was told to return a document in relation to a Subject Access Request (SAR) and told it was a criminal offence not to return it;
10. The applicant was threatened with police coming to her door to remove the document; and,
11. The applicant disclosed an incident to a police officer and she was clear that she did not want to report it in any way, however, she was contacted on two occasions by police officers asking her to report this. 

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 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 to a reasonable standard but not so complaints 2 and 10.

Consequently, we have made two recommendations to address the shortcomings in Police Scotland’s handling of complaints 2 and 10. In summary, we have recommended that Police Scotland conduct further enquiry with the subject officers, reassess the evidence available and provide the applicant with a fresh response.

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

Police Bodies : Police Scotland