Humberside Police

Professional Standards Department Grimsby

Police Headquarters North East Lincolnshire
Priory Road DN32
Hull HU5 5SF

24 December 2018

Complaint Ref: CO/498/17

Dear Mr Walmsley

Re: Representations against the proposal to disapply complaint (CO/498/17)

I'm replying to your letter dated 18 December 2018 concerning the above referenced matter.

Please find enclosed Annex outlining my reasons for opposing the grounds upon which the
force proposes to disapply my complaint.

Yours sincerely

Enclosure
 Annex

These representations are against a proposal to disapply complaint CO/498/17 and served in
accordance with Regulation 5 of the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2012.

1. The grounds follow in the order they appear in the brief summary of the complaint recording of
26 July 2017.

Allegation 1: Considered vexatious and an abuse of the complaints system

2. The present complaint has no connection with the issues to which the force is attributing its
proposed grounds in support of disapplying my complaint. The letter of 18 December 2018
(“proposal letter”) refers to an entirely unrelated complaint. In respect of the matter wrongly
referred to (IX/578/17) the force refused to record a complaint which was about the crime I had
reported about the impersonation of a police officer which was improperly dealt with as if it
were a complaint submitted under the Police Reform Act 2002. The decision was appealed to
the IOPC who found that the grounds relied upon by the police were unsatisfactory so it upheld
my appeal and directed the force to record the complaint (CO/520/17).

3. The present complaint also concerned the force improperly dealing with a crime I had reported
and treated as if it were a complaint (under the Police Reform Act), but the allegation was not in
any way connected with the impersonation of a police officer. The force interpreted this element
in its summary of the present complaint as follows:

“The complainant believes a crime has been committed against him by an officer for
failing to record his report as a Crime, and instead referring the matter as a Complaint
against Police.”

4. The crime I had reported is quite comprehensively set out in the complaint form of 14 July 2017
and clearly alleged that Inspector Andrew Parsons and Chief Superintendent Judi Heaton (head
of the professional standards branch) were complicit in abusing their positions for the purpose
of achieving a detriment to me for which they are liable to imprisonment under the Criminal
Justice and Courts Act 2015. This was in connection with a previous complaint in which I had
alleged wrongful arrest and false imprisonment and expressed my suspicion that the arresting
officer incited a witness to commit perjury. Inspector Andrew Parsons who was referred the
 complaint had not even opened the file until 370 days after it had been allocated to him and his
negligence was condoned by the professional standards branch (PSB).

5. I had gone over these matters in a letter of 11 August 2018 which I sent to the professional
standards branch, including pointing out that Sally Laycock had evidently not spotted from her
appraisal of the items of correspondence in her 31 October 2017 appeal outcome that one (2
August 2017) irrationally referred to the complaint about warrant officers impersonating police
officers. Bizarrely an appeal outcome dated 27 June 2017, also dealt with by Sally Laycock,
relating to complaint CO/127/17 refers to an incident log which she purports to have had sight
of but cites it as “log 343 from 5 June 2017” when in fact the relevant reference was log 207 of
7 January 2017. Log 343 of 5 June 2017 concerns this matter (CO/498/17) and has no relevance
to complaint CO/127/17 which concerned a crime I raised with the police by reporting it via the
facility on the force’s website on 7 January 2017 alleging that operations within the court were
being run criminally, after which an elaborate obfuscation process ensued.

6. Notwithstanding the force wrongly associating a previous and irrelevant complaint to support its
view that the present complaint is vexatious etc., and at the risk of convoluting the issue further,
the force did not properly reviewed the papers which irrelevantly refer to police impersonation.
To clarify this, I did not make a call to the Police on 26 February 2017, rather my records
indicate that the police made a call to me on 27 February. The contact I made recounting my
dealings with two members of Humberside Police staff was in fact a crime I reported and
submitted on 25 February 2017 via the police’s website (log 196 of 26 February 2017) and was
not a complaint under the Police Reform Act even though the force inappropriately dealt with it
as though it was.

7. Although this is obviously a red herring, being clearly irrelevant to this complaint, I will say for
the record that the force misleadingly refers to PC 57 Blake's explanation he gave me with
regard to the powers of Warrant Officers serving with Humberside Police. The explanation did
not actually address whether it was a criminal offence for Warrants officers to state that they
were the police (impersonate police officers). Out of the process, which cunningly evaded the
issue, I came to understand that Police members of staff held designated powers to execute
certain warrants as designated by the courts, but have never found out whether they can by law
impersonate police officers.
8. The force's assertion that I refused to accept PC Blake's view and wished to complain regardless
also fails to take into consideration my appeal to the IOPC (3 June 2017) in which it was made
categorically clear that it was an investigation into the crime I had reported which I wished was
persisted with (not complaint). Despite pointing out all of the anomalies, they were ignored (as
is routine) and the matter was conducted in the usual sham manner in a joint operation involving
DCI Craig Scaife, Sally Banks, Inspector Allan Harvey 5521 and assistant force solicitor Sally
Laycock.

9. Finally, the grounds supporting this allegation being an abuse of the complaints system on the
basis that I had indicated in my conversation with PC Blake that the matter was linked to a
miscarriage of justice etc., is not in any way relevant. Please note that I have no way of
verifying whether or not I said this to PC Blake when he called and therefore I am not prepared
to deny it. However, whatever I said in that conversation was irrelevant to the present matter
because my allegation, as I have previously made clear was not about the impersonation of
police officers. Even if there was some way of linking the two matters it would have been
clutching desperately at straws and perverse to raise grounds of vexatiousness on this basis.

Allegation 2: Made without foundation, oppressive and an abuse of the complaints process

10. I am labelled vexatious for including within my complaint the crime I reported to the police
via its website on 4 June 2017 (log 343 of 5th June) which states the following in respect of
the perjury I have always and will continue to assert has been committed:

“The witnesses had committed criminal offences by making false allegations which were
backed up in detailed statements to the police. Consequently they were liable to
imprisonment for perverting the course of justice and clearly should have been
investigated by the police and prosecuted by the CPS (neither happened).”

11. The force perversely states that I have not offered any evidence to support this assertion. This
is completely untrue because I have provided evidence to the PSB which proves the crime
beyond reasonable doubt. The force potentially had all the evidence in any event, before it was
pieced together and handed to them on a plate, as it was all contained in the case file. All was
required of the force was to consider all the circumstances relevant to the allegations and
pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry, whether they pointed towards or away from the
defendant as required by the code of practice under the criminal procedure and Investigations
 Act 1996. The force focused solely on information that pointed to my guilt with the objective
of bringing about a conviction whether or not I was guilty.

12. By scrutinising the evidence in the case file for inconsistencies, I have been able to prove
beyond reasonable doubt that the evidence adduced by the Johnsons was false and the full
Code test (evidential stage) could not have possibly been met, despite not having any
experience in this kind of work. This raises questions of why the police did not establish that
the statements were questionable and ultimately untrue and how such blatant fabrications
could subsequently have possibly been believed by the CPS and court. The most feasible
answer to that lies in the authorities colluding and advancing to a prosecution maliciously. The
19 February 2018 report (attached) provides extensive evidence pointing to the likeliness of
this being what happened and the cause of my wrongful conviction.

13. The present complaint was submitted on 14 July 2017 by which time a substantial account of
all the inconsistencies I had discovered up until that point from scrutinising the contents of the
CPS case file had been provided to the PSB in an appeal of 22 April 2017 contesting the Local
Resolution outcome. Perhaps the force is asserting that I have not offered any evidence, but
only in the context that no evidence specifically accompanied the prescribed complaint form
of 14 July. If so, then an application to disapply the complaint on this basis would be an abuse
of the complaints process because the prescribed complaint form states on it that “at this stage
we only require a summary of your complaint”. It would be irrational not to give the
complainant the opportunity to provide further information if the force intended disposing of a
complaint based on a finding of it being made without foundation if all that had initially been
asked for was a summary.

14. In anticipation of the force being persuaded that there is no basis for disapplying my
complaint and it is proceeded with by way of a referral to the IOPC for full investigation I will
identify below a number of relevant papers which contain evidence that supports my
allegations that the Johnsons adduced perjured evidence to the court.

i) Appeal of 22 April 2017 (CO/432/15)

ii) Report supplementing the IOPC directed investigation 19 February 2018
(CO/432/15)
iii) Appeal against the police investigation 8 November 2018 (CO/432/15)
iv) Email 31 October 2018 (CPS case reference 16AY0283715)
15. The force further supports its case that my allegation of perjury is without foundation on the
strength of the findings of the IOPC. This is again abusing the complaints process because the
force is required, in the interest of justice, to consider the best evidence available. The force
has in this case seized the opportunity to exploit the IOPC's findings and so considers this to
remove any responsibility which is misconceived because the force is ultimately accountable
for its own decisions. The best evidence is indisputably the comprehensive and meticulously
set out representations in the listed paperwork above, not what a cover-up specialist has
recently come up with as a favour to the court, CPS and police.

16. This is a perfect example of how dangerous it is for these kinds of decisions, which are not
worth the paper they're written on, to be blindly accepted as authoritative and used against
people oppressively. If the force examined the IOPC's findings in conjunction with my appeal
grounds of 8 November 2018 it could not credibly be denied that the conduct of the casework
manager Sarah Turner amounts to misconduct in public office. That also goes for Chief
Inspector, Sharon Harrison who carried out the sham investigation on behalf of Humberside
police.

17. All the IOPC's report changes, as far as Humberside police's obligations are concerned, is that
its investigation should now focus on the Criminal Cases Review Commission, Information
Commissioner and the IOPC's casework manager as well as the CPS, Court and police for
being complicit in the cover-up and perverting the course of justice.

18. The force may continue defending the indefensible and refuse taking responsibility for its
criminal negligence but it will at some point (when the matter falls on the desk of someone
with integrity and appropriate authority) have to deal with the fact that it has always held the
evidence to prove conclusively the allegations that the witnesses had committed perjury and I
had been unlawfully arrested and falsely imprisoned.

19. The arresting officer had reasonable grounds for suspecting that the witnesses had made false
allegations so there was a greater necessity for the Johnsons to be arrested (even Mr Warriner)
under section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, to allow the prompt and
effective investigation into their unreliable and conflicting accounts. The failure to have all the
witnesses questioned independently without delay harmed my case immeasurably as Mrs
 Johnson was advantaged by 5 days to glean information which allowed her to adjust her
account, adding or leaving out what was required to advantage the prosecution.

20. The force's final argument regarding this allegation is that the hundreds of days that Inspector
Parsons sat on the complaint without even opening it was not a legitimate cause for complaint.
It is worth remembering at this point that the allegations under consideration are those
summarised and recorded in the “Complainant Report” dated 26 July 2017 which did not
accurately reflect the complaint I submitted on 14 July 2017. The issue complained about was
that the crime I had reported on the force's website on 4 June 2017 (log 343 of 5 June) was
improperly dealt with as if it were a complaint under the Police Reform Act. Supporting this I
summarised what was said to me by the police officer who called on 8 June in response to my
allegations which was that the matter would be referred to the PSB who would likely refer the
matter to the IOPC but recommended I send details to them as well, which I did on the same
day. The contents of the incident log were quoted in my complaint for reference purposes.

21. Getting back to the force's reasons for considering this allegation to be oppressive and made
without foundation. These are also clearly perverse. Anyone experiencing the trouble,
injustice and stress associated with being unlawfully arrested, falsely imprisoned and wrongly
convicted for a crime, as I had, would agree that there was every cause for complaint, if when
hundreds of days after the concerns were raised, it was discovered that the officer dealing with
the matter had not bothered to open the file until 370 days after it had been allocated to him.

22. There should be no need to elaborate further on this, however, the force has focussed its
argument on a specific aspect, being that I had expressed that the delay had denied my right to
legal remedy, which it discredited because the ongoing complaint did not prevent me from
launching any legal proceedings. The element relating to the injustice caused, which I had
attributed the incalculable amount of time I had wasted because of the negligence and
dishonesty, had not been taken into account. The relevant part of log 343 of 5 June is quoted
below:

“The [PSB] defended the resolving officer implying his workload left him no time to deal
with the complaint which suggests that the PSB were conscious that the allocation to this
officer was inappropriate and could have been deliberately engineered to inflict the
maximum injustice. Notwithstanding the incalculable amount of time I have had to
dedicate/waste on account of Humberside police's negligence and dishonesty, I have been
denied my legal right to legal remedy because of the delay. For example, it has benefited
the force by ensuring that by the time investigations had completed any legal proceedings
 regarding the breach of Human Rights that I may have intended bringing upon the
outcome, would be statute barred.”

23. Of course, there is no justification for disapplying this element of the complaint on the argued
ground but it is worth considering it briefly. In hindsight this is a naive view, but it should be
expected if one went to the trouble of formally raising concerns with a police force’s
department that oversees professional standards that they would be dealt with properly in a
fair way and an appropriate outcome would be one which remedied the injustice. It is a
reasonable presumption therefore that it would not occur to most people who put faith in the
force to fairly investigate the complaint that pursuing legal proceedings was an option or that
there were even time limits until after the findings revealed that their faith was misplaced, and
only then the matter looked into.

24. This is not all that needs saying on the matter because the complaint had been suspended
under Regulation 22 of the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2012 which
contributed to the delay and significantly to my wrongful conviction. The suspension of the
complaint was not in accordance with the law and should have been allowed to continue in the
public interest. All the circumstances surrounding this (held already by the PSB) are set out
comprehensively in paragraphs 66 - 89 of the attached report of 19 February 2018.

25. What is particularly relevant here is that the force’s argument conflicts with its own published
policy which loosely interprets the IOPC Statutory Guidance on the handling of complaints on
this particular issue. The force’s website states the following in respect of when the power
arises to suspend a complaint into the conduct of a police officer but which shall continue if it
is in the public interest to do so:

“An exception to this is where there is evidence that an officer has committed a criminal
offence during the course of the conduct alleged and to delay the investigation would
cause that offence to become statute barred.”

26. The delay dealing with the complaint had exactly the effect of causing the offence to be
statute barred. It is irrelevant that the force states in it proposal letter that I was not prevented
from launching legal proceedings on account of an ongoing complaint against Police. The law
has obviously been enacted with it in mind that a potential litigant would await the outcome of
a complaint (or even be required to by law) before launching legal proceedings.
27. The force will no doubt argue that its policy only provides an exception to suspending a
complaint “where there is evidence that an officer has committed a criminal offence during
the course of the conduct alleged” and there was no evidence (just my opinion). If so, there
are two answers to that; firstly there was evidence as I have demonstrated previously (paras
10-19 above) and secondly the force’s policy is not particularly representative of the IOPC
Statutory Guidance, for example it provides a specific example of when the public interest
would require the continuation of the investigation even though the issues raised are closely
linked. The scenario mirrors the circumstances which surround my case in respect of the
alleged offence committed by the police was more serious than the offence I was charged
with. The Statutory Guidance states as follows at paragraph 9.55:

“There will be many cases where the necessary balancing exercise comes down in favour
of continuing with the investigation or other procedure even though the issues raised by
the criminal investigation or proceedings and by the complaint are closely linked. That
might be so, for example, where it is alleged that the police officer has committed a more
serious offence than that with which the defendant to the related criminal proceedings is
charged (because it might then be in the public interest to prioritise the investigation and
prosecution of the more serious offence despite the risk of prejudice to the ongoing
prosecution of the lesser offence).”

28. The force has highlighted by raising the issue about the IOPC not upholding the appeal in
relation to complaint CO/432/15 that there are other aspects of that complaint which must now
be dealt with. The timing of the proposal letter and the continued use of obfuscation tactics (re
warrant officer complaint) add credence to the dishonesty I alleged that was employed in
dealing with the present matter and CO/886/17 which was raise in complaint CO/400/18. A
new complaint is now appropriate and it should be noted that this can not be considered an
abuse of the complaints system on the basis that it is a repetitious complaint because there is
new evidence that was not reasonably available at the time 400/18 was made.

29. From 14 July 2017 up until receiving the proposal letter in respect of the present complaint the
matter has prolonged over 522 days. It is reasonable to question the force’s motives when its
letter proposing to disapply the complaint coincided so closely with the IOPC outcome (only 4
days after) which it clearly thinks has provided it a get out of jail free card. For your reference
the force recorded complaint 400/18 on either the 1st or 2nd of August 2018 (the record states
both dates) and has the following summary:

“The complainant alleges that Professional Standards Branch recorded a complaint on

26th July 2017 which he suspects was intentionally grossly mishandled resulting in
 Humberside Appeals Body referring the case back to the department to re-submit
representations before considering whether to disapply his complaint. However there was
no further contact regarding this matter nor within the IPCC statutory guidelines.”

30. Other matters were appropriate to be investigated in complaint CO/432/15 that were not,
owing to the PSB advising the Investigating Officer (IO) that the investigation should be
restricted to what the force recorded in the complaint report of 24 November 2015 which was
a brief summary of my preliminary representations in the initial complaint of 8 November
2015. This was an abuse of the complaints system because the prescribed complaint form
states on it that “at this stage we only require a summary of your complaint” and by that it is
clear that the PSB would not expect the issues to be comprehensively set out from the outset.
The IOPC outcome at paragraph 6 tells you everything you need to know about where
casework manager, Sarah Turner’s loyalties lie, and the negligent and sub-standard way she
undertakes her legal duties:

“You state that the IO did not include all complaints which the IOPC stated they should.
Please note that the decision letter in respect of your appeal of the local resolution decision
recommended Humberside Police to record new complaints, but this recommendation is
not a direction and therefore Humberside Police are not duty bound to record them. If you
wish to make complaints, please make these online and Humberside Police will make a
recording decision in the usual way. However, I can see from the IO’s decision letter that
they have addressed more than the 2 complaints originally recorded.”

31. The force is obliged to take into account all of the representations including those which have
been provided additionally during the process. The IOPC case worker falsely states above that
the IOPC recommended Humberside Police to record new complaints. The letter in respect of
my appeal of the local resolution decision did not mention anything about recording additional
complaints, the letter dated 29 August 2017 made the following remarks:

“In the circumstances, and as part of my direction to investigate your complaint, I will
recommend the person appointed to investigate your complaint [this has to be a person
who hasn't participated in attempting Local Resolution] reviews both sets of your appeal
correspondence before finalising with you details of your complaint and what the
investigation will consider.

Whilst Humberside Police already have on file the appeal you submitted on 22 April 2017,
I will provide a copy of the additional documentation, dated 13th July 2017, to Humberside
Police for consideration; a copy of which is attached to this decision letter for your
information.”
32. Who knows why one IOPC casework manager should recommend the above when a different
casework manager’s attitude about it when the force completely ignored it was that she
couldn’t care less. There is however an opportunity for all the issues that were ignored to be
dealt with now in the present complaint. Any grounds for disapplication that the force may
consider about the time elapsing being more than 12 months etc. would be invalidated on the
basis that it was the PSB’s refusal to deal with them earlier when they were raised. It would be
appropriate to finalise what the new issues are at the stage when an action plan is agreed
detailing how the complaint will be resolved.

Allegation 3: Made without foundation, vexatious and oppressive

33. Again the force is clutching desperately at straws to raise grounds on the basis that the head of
the Department is not responsible for the Department she is in charge of. This perversely
implies that heads of departments should not be held accountable for whatever goes on under
their watch. Presumably the head of the PSB is remunerated to reflect the responsibility. It is
indefensible then to say that someone who carries the title and has the salary to go with it
should carry no responsibility for the repeat failure to progress complaints in line with the
statutory guidance that routinely goes on and is frequently reported.

34. The 19 February 2018 report (attached) records in paragraphs 83–89 the amount of effort that
went into chasing updates once the investigation had resumed after it had been unlawfully
suspended.
.