Following years of criticism as to how alleged misconduct in the Service (military) Police is handled, last year a new scheme for the investigation and oversight of Service Police complaints was finally established. The new rules and regulations only came into force on 19 June 2023 and apply to events taking place from that point on. Sadly they do not apply to events taking place prior to that point and so those matters will still need to be dealt with under the old deficient in-house scheme.
Absolutely critical to the new system working well will be ensuring that cases of alleged criminality or misconduct involving members of a Service Police force are brought to the attention of the new Service Police Complaints Commissioner (SPCC) immediately. That will ensure she can oversee the allegation and direct how it must be dealt with and keep independent eyes on it.
To be clear and in simple terms, the following alleged conduct has to be brought to the SPCC’s attention within one day of coming to the attention of the relevant authority (usually the Service Police force concerned), for her to decide how the case should be dealt with – basically it includes all alleged criminal activity and any alleged discriminatory conduct:
- Any case where the alleged conduct resulted in death or serious injury;
- Any allegation of:
- a serious assault,
- a sexual assault (defined as ‘serious’ but the MoD accepts that any sexual offence committed by a member of the Service Police should be considered serious),
- ‘serious’ corruption,
- a service offence liable to lead to administrative action and aggravated by discriminatory behaviour (ie behaviour motivated by assumptions or negative attitudes related to a person’s race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership status, pregnancy/maternity status),
- or any other criminal offence.
You do not have to wait for the Service Police to decide for themselves that the matter needs to be referred to the SPCC. The SPCC can treat a matter as referred to her if it comes to her attention by another route. So your therapist, solicitor, or a charity like the CMJ can make the referral for you and ask the SPCC to pick it up. If in doubt, please do that.
Finally – and this is important for those disproportionately likely to be concerned about discrimination (women and service personnel of colour or from a religious minority in particular): the policy setting out the new Service Police rules and regulations is incorrect in one very important respect. It states that anyone thinking of making a complaint against the Service Police cannot also make a Service Complaint. That is wrong. This is important because, if you have been the victim of discrimination, harassment or victimisation by a member of the Service Police, and have failed to raise a Service Complaint (as opposed to a Service Police complaint) about the same matter, then you cannot bring a claim in the Employment Tribunal about it. So the policy as it currently stands is telling people who may have valid discrimination claims not to make a Service Complaint – when doing so would be the only way they could protect their right to bring a claim in the ET. We have brought this error to the urgent attention of the Ministry of Defence and asked them to correct it. In the meantime, please be aware that if you are claiming to have been the victim of discrimination by the Service Police and wish to bring an ET claim about that matter, you do need to make a Service Complaint and any decision to refuse to admit your complaint on the basis that it should have been raised as a Service Police complaint will be unlawful.
The relevant policy on Service Police complaints (but note the error above) is here