There have been numerous comments on this - that the officer should be arrested, prosecuted, suspended, summarily dismissed. Some of this is not possible or may not be appropriate. 1/ https://twitter.com/LancsPolice/status/1251535259516239874

The statement says the officer had been referred to professional standards. That means there will be an assessment of whether this is a complaint or a conduct matter under Police Reform Act 2002 s12. If a conduct matter, it has to be assessed as recordable or non recordable. 2/

Only if it is assessed as a complaint or recordable conduct matter could it be referred to the Independent Office of Police Conduct. For it to be referred, it would have to fall within a mandatory or appropriate ground - see PRA schedule 3 para 13. It is not, therefore 3/

a free choice for the Chief Constable. He has to apply the proper process. There is also no such thing as summary dismissal for a police officer. There has to be a misconduct investigation either under the PRA and Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020 or the 4/

Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020. To criticise the force for not immediately ‘sacking’ the officer is unfair to everyone - the complainant who may want a proper invesigation, the officer who will want the protection of proper and fair process, and the Chief Constable who must 5/

follow the laws above. The Employment Rights Act 1996, unfair dismissal, summary dismissal etc does not apply to police officers who are office holders and not employees. 6/

For those who call for arrest - for an arrest to be lawful it must be necessary under Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 s24(4). Arrest is not a punishment and it is not an indication of guilt. Here, the police know this officer’s address and can contact him to attend 7/

an interview under caution (if required). I do not say whether an arrest is, therefore, necessary - only to say that it must be necessary and cannot be used solely as a punishment or for public effect. If the investigation or an effective interview can be done without arrest 8/

then arrest may not be necessary. As for suspension, an officer or any member of staff who is suspended must be done on full pay. Suspension is also not a punishment and cannot be used as such. It should be imposed where necessary to 9/

ensure an effective investigation or to protect the public. Given that an officer would be on full pay during a suspension, which is expensive, a force may choose to deploy an officer to non public-facing duties - called “restricted duties”. Those calling for suspension 10/

may be unhappy if an officer who could work in a non public facing role was instead paid for staying at home and doing no work. As for proesecution, that is a decision not for the Chief Constable but the Crown Prosecution Service. At the end of the conduct investigation, 11/

It will he considered whether any criminal offences are apparent. If so, the investigation report is sent to the CPS which makes the decision on prosecution. If none of this applies or the CPS decision is not to prosecute then it may be appropriate for there to be formal 12/

misconduct proceedings. If for gross misconduct then it would be chaired by an independent lawyer with a right of appeal to an independent Police Appeals Tribunal. 13/

This protects all of us. Police officers have independence from senior officers and politicians. Each officer has to be satisfied of an arrest or detention before they exercise such a power. They may not arrest or detain solely on the instruction of a senior officer, let alone 14

a politician. That independence requires the officers cannot be summarily sacked when they do not follow instructions or do the bidding of others. In consequence, there is a statutory conduct regime, which must be followed and, according to the statement above, 15/

is being followed. The matter had been referred to the professional standards department, as is required. They will assess the matter, as is required. There will be an investigation and final assessment, as is required. I do not know what the outcome will be - but that is 16/

a matter for proper process. End