In the wake of the home secretary’s approval of revised rules on conferring by police officers in writing up their post-event accounts, David Wolchover & Anthony Heaton-Armstrong conclude their series on the issues at the heart of the debate
- The legalities involved in refusing to co-operate.
- From controversy to non-issue: the impact of the pervasive use of body worn cameras.
- The newly approved guidelines.
Last time, in Part 2 of this three-part series, we considered the recommendations of the Metropolitan Police Metropolitan Evidence Project Implementation Committee (EPIC) and highlighted the lack of uniformity in practice as well as earlier proposals for an outright ban on conferring (also see 'Part 1' NLJ, 21 February 2019, p12). We also referenced the research by Professors Lorraine Hope and Fiona Gabbert into the impact of post incident conferring—the final report of which was delivered to the Metropolitan Police Service in February 2010
For no reason which has ever been offered release of the Hope-Gabbert study was long postponed and not released until August 2011, suggesting that the commissioning bodies were less
