- Though widely criticised, the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s report on the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of Operation Midland contained a series of recommendations which, despite being overlooked, could prove highly useful.
Operation Kentia was the investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) of an aspect of the Metropolitan Police’s disastrous handling in its Operation Midland of the lurid claims made by paedophile Carl Beech (aka ‘Nick’). The question was whether three officers had breached the ‘duties and responsibilities’ standard of professional behaviour.
The IOPC’s report, published earlier this month, was widely condemned as a ‘whitewash’, ‘wholly inadequate’ and evidence that the IOPC itself was ‘not fit for purpose’. I do not deal here with those criticisms, which have been extensively canvassed elsewhere. Rather, my purpose is to look at the recommendations made by the IOPC at the end of its report—which have received no attention and which broadly seem sensible and, if acted upon, useful.
