PSNI takes action against 74 cops for improperly watching arrest mistake bodycam video 'for entertainment'
The police have taken action against 74 officers who improperly accessed footage of one of their fellow cops messing up a drugs arrest.
The bodycam video showed a PSNI officer making an error administering a caution while arresting a man for drug possession, causing a colleague to laugh in the background.
More than 80 officers over 20 police stations across Northern Ireland went on to watch the footage over the course of three years, almost none of whom had the right to see it.
The chief executive of the Police Ombudsman’s Office, Hugh Hume, said the video ‘may have been viewed for entertainment and amusement’.
But he added: “The officers who did so showed little regard for the privacy of the man being arrested, nor for the emotional wellbeing of their colleague featured in the video.”
Mr Hume also stated that when questioned, most of the cops who saw the video had ‘an apparent lack of awareness that doing so might constitute a criminal or misconduct offence’.
Police Ombudsman investigators established that between December 2019 and November 2022, footage of the incident was accessed 248 times by 82 police officers – only five of whom had any legitimate reasons to view it.
Most of the other 77 looked at it once or twice, but many did so more often, including one officer who accessed it 21 times.
One of those 77 is currently the subject of an investigation into potential criminality regarding their viewing of the video, while the PSNI has taken ‘management action’ against 74 of the others.
Management action can involve moves such as detailing how an officer’s actions fell below expected standards, and setting down expectations and improvement plans to stop it happening again.
The remaining two who viewed the video have since retired and cannot be investigated for possible misconduct.
Mr Hume described the decision to take management action against 74 officers as ‘a reasonable and proportionate outcome’, and welcomed moves to prevent misuse of bodycam footage.
But he expressed concern at the PSNI’s refusal to carry out checks that could show the scale of unauthorised access to its video system, stating there’s a ‘significant residual risk’ private and personal data could be accessed without a legitimate reason.
The Ombudsman’s findings are now to be shared with the Information Commissioner.