The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to be given new permanent powers to assist them with the enormous task of dealing with the Hillsborough Inquiry’s conclusions of cover up and collusion.
The much-criticised and beleaguered IPCC will now be able to compel serving police officers and staff as witnesses. They are also allowed to re-investigate the previous findings of its predecessor, the Police Complaints Authority.
The IPCC has recently faced criticism concerning the conclusions of some of its major investigations, in particular, deaths in custody, and many point to the fact that such a high percentage of its investigators are former police officers. In its defence, the IPCC have encountered enormous difficulties when dealing with police under investigation who, quite reasonably in our adversarial system, have exercised their right to silence.
There is no doubt that the IPCC have a huge task in front of them; apparently, they are likely to be examining 2,444 officers and analysing 450,000 pages/documents.
