Misuse and Misconduct Cases Involving Incorrect Use of Body Worn Video 2018 to 2022
Keywords
Misuse, Misconduct, Cases, Incorrect, Body worn video, Incident, Mis-use, Camera, Policing, Tool, Complaint, Centurion, PSD, Storage, Footage, BWV, Evidence, Stored, Clip, Deleted, Labelled, Filmed, Powers, Note, Intimate, Sensitive, Locations, Court, Automated.
Publication Number
PUB 1440
FOI Reference Number
17182
Request Title
Misuse and Misconduct Cases Involving Incorrect Use of Body Worn Video 2018 to 2022
Date Range
2018 to 2022
Information Requested
1/ All records of mis-use or incorrect use of body worn video over the last four years (from January 1st 2018 to the date this response is answered), providing the year of the incident and a description of the mis-use (e.g. the camera was turned off by an officer). If the force does not collect these records, please state why it does not scrutinise use of this policing tool.
2/ All records of any known complaints made about mis-use or incorrect use of body worn video over the last four years (from January 1st 2018 to the date this response is answered), providing the year of the incident, description and complaint (e.g. video turned off or video not turned on).
3/ All records of all misconduct cases against officers for mis-use or incorrect use of body worn video over the last four years (from January 1st 2018 to the date this response is answered), providing the year of the incident, description of the mis-use and reason for misconduct, and misconduct outcome and investigatory body (e.g. management advice by PSD).
Disclosure with Exemptions
Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption
Information Correct as at
18 July 2022
Date of Disclosure
18 July 2022
Related Documents/Links
N/A
FOI 17182 Response
FOI Duty
First Duty – Essex Police does not hold information relating to all of your request.
Second Duty – Not applicable, see below
Fact - BWV management do not hold information that allows it to be extracted and verified.
Centurion is a database used by force Professional Standards Department (PSD). The data in the above request is not held in a format that allows for all information to be extracted and verified.
Exemption - Section 12(1)
Refusal - Section 17(5)
Reasoning
BWV management has responded as follows; The BWV is managed in regard to the correct storage of our footage and the correct use of our cameras. BWV management also engage in training and the upkeep of policy.
All BWV evidence is stored on Evidence.Com and under the current process any complaint would first come through PSD and only then would the corresponding clip be searched. The footage in question, may never have been filmed in the first place or may have auto deleted (60 days) if not labelled correctly or have been deleted by the officer if no offence or complaint was obvious at the time or within the above sixty days.
Policy dictates that officers will film most interactions with the public when exercising their policing powers and the only exceptions would be where intimate searches or sensitive locations such as religious. or medical areas where the intrusion would not be evidential or proportionate to the investigation.
Where an officer does not film the incident at all , they are required to make note and give reason for the non-compliance of this, in their electronic pocket book or physical pocket book.
Procedure - A901
In circumstances where a user would have been expected to have recorded the incident as per the circumstances above and BWV is not used, the user must record the reasons.
Failing to record an incident may require explanation in court; however, in some instances it is not appropriate to make a video recording and in such cases users should record the fact in their PNB.
Users may not indiscriminately record entire duties or patrols. Recordings must be incident specific (whether or not the recording is ultimately required for use as evidence).
There is no central record compiled of these PNB entries. Any physical complaints that are submitted are dealt with by PSD and any footage supplied or missing would be documented during that particular investigation but would not be recorded by BWV Management, as the footage is shared purely for the length of the investigation. There is no automated way counting the number of times an officer does not activate their camera at an incident without manually reviewing each incident by incident . Likewise BWV Management would not be aware of any outcome from a PSD investigation.
We are unable to extract details regarding the number of incidents so would not be able to say how many incidents are found to be the officers or equipment's fault, so in turn would not know the number of complaints or action taken as a result of this.
Daily use: We have a 1% failure rate on cameras so any technical failure during incidents could be audited from our Field Ops as the camera would need to be swapped out as soon as any fault was noticed.
With several hundred clips uploaded per day by several thousand officers it would be impossible to monitor each and every officers footage but several dip samples are performed per day for compliance purposes only.
Complaints may come in weeks, months, or years after the footage is recorded and may no longer be on the system as we encourage officers to not retain, non-evidential footage in order to comply with DPIA. This is contained within 3.1.4 under procedure A901
PSD are unable to extract those complaints recorded within the Centurion system containing allegations regarding the policy procedure or use of Body Worn Video, the system is used to manage complaints and investigations, (following national guidelines regarding reporting). Published statistics follow the guidelines based on the set 11 Complaint Categories A-L with 45 sub-categories and Misconduct Categories. Complaint and misconduct data are recorded pre strand in a case, the system does not cover each Officer allegation within a separate complaint. Each complaint or misconduct case is likely to have more than one complaint/misconduct strand or category and could include multiple Officers subject to a complaint strand.
Having said the above, Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) holds the Police Force to account and has the legal power to hold the Chief Constable to account.
The conduct of a Police Officer or a Police Staff member is an important issue and Essex Police regularly receive FOI requests regarding misconduct and complaints both the PFCC and the Police Service need to be accountable and transparent regarding this issue.
Data is regularly published via quarterly reports, please click on the following link: https://www.essex.pfcc.police.uk/finance-reporting/conduct-professional-standards/
Essex Police have an expectation that management and staff at all levels will lead by example, consistently displaying behaviour in line with the Code of Ethics and ensuring adherence to legal requirements and to all Essex Police policies, procedures and practices. Through Prevention, Intelligence, Enforcement, Communication and Engagement, Essex Police is committed to making sure the opportunity for corruption is reduced to the lowest possible risk. Where corruption is identified the organisation will deal with it proportionately and effectively.
A member of the public can lodge a complaint regarding conduct with the Professional Standards Department (PSD), please see below link: https://www.essex.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/c/complaints/
Internal conduct cases (from staff v staff) are managed by Human Resources (HR) who will, if necessary refer to PSD for formal assessment. If formal misconduct is identified, HR will manage the investigation, however, PSD will decide on whether there is a case to answer through a disciplinary process. Dependant on the circumstances, it can be in various forms, from an informal warning to a formal disciplinary hearing. Formal misconduct cases are recorded by PSD on the conduct database.
If a complaint is about the conduct of a Police Officer or member of Police Staff made from a member of the public, the complaint will be managed by PSD and dealt with by either the policing area or department it relates to, through a local resolution or a local investigation. This can subsequently be appealed to either the Chief Constable or the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) depending on the specifics of the individual case if the complainant remains dissatisfied. If local resolution is not appropriate and the complaint considered serious, the complaint will be investigated by PSD. Essex Police can also refer matters to the IOPC who may decide to independently investigate certain cases.
Additional mandatory referrals and requested reviews can also be viewed via the IOPC web site. The following link provides useful data and explains further regarding coding and strands of misconduct and complaints:
Update on IOPC race discrimination work | Independent Office for Police Conduct
https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/tags/essex-police
The IOPC publish the number of complaint cases broken down by force, the most recent data is for the 2019/20 year – please see below link:
To increase openness and transparency misconduct hearings are now held in public, (although in exceptional circumstances they can be held in private). This decision was announced by the Home Secretary in the spring of 2015 and applies to all cases where an Officer is given notice to attend a hearing after May 2015. Further information regarding misconduct hearings and upcoming hearings can also be found via the following links:
https://www.essex.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/mis/misconduct-hearings/
https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/af/accessing-information/published-items?q=misconduct