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Police Review Letters
Sentinel House
163 Brighton Road
Coulsden
Surrey. CR5 2YH
10th November 2008
RE: Conferring.
Dear Editor,
Let's hope the applicants for the post of Metropolitan Commissioner show more decisiveness and leadership than the latest ACPO guidance on conferring post a firearms incident. ACPO has allowed itself to be "bounced" into making premature, confused and unrealistic guidance.
Firstly, conferring is still permitted in law (Bass 1953) and ACPO should've waited until the Court of Appeal gave its judgment on the Saunders/Tucker judicial review. They should not have rushed into a disgraceful decision that appears to be all about pleasing others and protecting themselves; they should have supported their firearms officers.
Secondly, their guidance is confusing - is conferring allowed or not? At a recent National Post Incident Management Conference in Kent, representatives of ACPO tried, to no avail, to clarify the guidance. As delegates repeatedly asked - can officers confer, it was like Jeremy Paxman meets Vicky Pollard as the answer came - yeah but no but yeah but no but!!
Thirdly, if anyone believes that officers won't speak to each other following a firearms incident then they are completely divorced from reality. Officers will naturally seek and offer reassurance. That isn't conferring, it's human nature.
ACPO trust officers to carry firearms and to use them so why can't they trust them to make their notes in an equally professional way? Sir Ronnie Flanagan would video tape officers talking to each other but recognises the difficulty of anonymity. Perhaps the officers could wear stocking masks then they'd really feel like suspects!
Ian Pointon
Chairman
Kent Police Federation
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