It is time for the ‘operational independence’ of individual forces to be subjected to scrutiny and ministerial oversight
Daily Telegraph 16/04/26
There is an old saying that heaven is where the chefs are French, the lovers are Italian, the mechanics are German, the organisers are Swiss and the British are the police. But British policing is not what it once was.
Our police were traditionally marvelled at by other nations everywhere thanks to the model created by Sir Robert Peel. This was based on trust and mutual compliance, an understanding that our police could be trusted and their actions were based on the consent of the people and not by fear or the arbitrary use of state force.
This model was an outstanding success. For generations it created the most extraordinary levels of trust and respect and was admired globally. But the model is breaking down – and in part this is happening because of political correctness.
Trust is bound to be lost when, after a series of heinous crimes, and with the alleged perpetrators on the loose, the police have consistently failed to disclose identifying characteristics such as ethnicity, which would help the public understand the threat and help apprehend suspects.
The gang rape of a woman outside a church in Epsom, Surrey is but the latest example. In the early hours of Saturday morning a woman in her 20s was followed from a nightclub and then attacked by a group of men. On Wednesday night, dozens of protesters demanded that police release descriptions of the men and details of their ethnicities. The response was to call out the riot squad.
Surrey Police claimed it was still working to identify those suspected of having carried out Saturday’s attack. The force’s spokesman has said that officer didn’t not have “full descriptions of any potential suspects”. The use of the word “full” is doing some heavy lifting here.
This failure in transparency is of course far from unique. It sadly is not the only case where a failure to identify alleged offenders has operated against the public interest. Merseyside Police were severely criticised for not revealing the ethnicity of Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, when he was arrested on suspicion of murder after killing three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport in July 2024.
Riots were clearly fuelled by the shameful lack of transparency and internet rumours were given new life. There is a genuine concern that the police and Crown Prosecution Service’s lack of transparency was rooted in an overweening desire to ensure “community harmony”. It did the opposite.
Sir Keir Starmer later said that information was withheld to protect a future trial, but this is nonsense. Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has made clear that far more information could have been put into the public domain by the Government and the police without prejudicing legal proceedings.
As a former Attorney General who spent 17 years prosecuting and defending cases in the criminal courts before going into politics, I can confirm that Mr Hall is quite right. I personally gave oral evidence in Parliament before the Procedure Committee last year that the sub judice rules (relating to what is withheld pending a court case) are also being over-interpreted to stifle speech.
Last year, then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told police to share suspects’ ethnicity and nationality with the public after authorities were accused of covering up offences carried out by asylum seekers. This followed the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton. Needless to say nothing seems to have been done. As usual no lessons appear to have been learned.
There is no good legal reason for this reticence. If a case ever gets to a jury it will be likely to be years after the offence and judges routinely give the most fervent and repeated warnings to jurors about focusing solely on the evidence before them. The number of trials which have collapsed by releases of such information is actually vanishingly small. Even the College of Policing has said transparency is “essential to prevent misinformation”.
Double standards and two-tier policing is rapidly driving down trust in the police and our justice system. The public does notice when, strangely enough, Merseyside Police was rather more transparent when a car was driven into crowds during Liverpool FC’s Premier League victory parade, saying that a white British man had been arrested.
Former Home Secretary Cooper has spoken of the police having “operational independence” when it comes to these transparency decisions. The debacle at West Midlands Police when it came to policing the Maccabi Tel Aviv football match shows the judgment of senior police officers can no longer be treated as sacrosanct.
It is time for this “operational independence” to be subjected to scrutiny and ministerial oversight, otherwise the reputation of British policing will continue to decline.
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