Police Ombudsman repeats view that complainants should be 'believed' in open letter to Stephen Nolan
The Police Ombudsman has repeated her view that people making allegations of serious sexual crimes against police officers should be “believed in the first instance” – but claims that has been “misinterpreted” as saying her office would pre-determine the outcome of complaints.
Jacqui Durkin has been under pressure over comments in an interview with the BBC’s Stephen Nolan – to whom she has written an open letter expressing “concern about the misinterpretation of comments attributed to her”.
She had faced calls to clarify her position by the Ulster Unionist Party leader, who said her office must avoid falling into the same trap that police forces have in the past by blurring the line between taking allegations seriously and assuming them to be true.
When asked for a response to Jon Burrows’s comments, the ombudsman’s office referred the News Letter to the open letter, which said that Mr Burrows had been given an “incorrect representation” of her comments.
The letter said Ms Durkin contacted Mr Nolan “to absolutely clarify my repeated assurance during our interview that my Office will fairly, impartially and independently investigate valid complaints”.
“I believe our discussion about vulnerable victims of alleged sexual abuse who make complaints to my office and the need for them to be treated with dignity, respect and to be believed in the first instance has been misinterpreted and presented as an approach of complaint pre-determination.
“I completely refute any such suggestion, and I repeatedly stated throughout our interview that my Office was independent and investigated complaints fairly and impartially with evidence led outcomes”.
The Ombudsman said the ensuing discussions “did not reflect the nuance” of her position – and criticised a quote from Mr Nolan where he described her position as “saying that people who make allegations against police officers of a sexual nature in the first instance must be believed”.
That’s despite having said in the same letter that there is a “need for them to be treated with dignity, respect and to be believed in the first instance”.
Ms Durkin added: “there is no predetermination of any complaint alleging sexual impropriety by a police officer”.
The ombudsman also said: “There is a fundamental difference between treating a vulnerable victim, who is making the most personal and sensitive disclosures in the context of a clear power imbalance, in such a way that they feel believed and that their complaint will be effectively investigated and inferring police officers should assume any allegation against them will be treated from the outset as being the truth”.
TUV leader Jim Allister said he was “astounded by the interview and particularly how she kept digging on it”.
The North Antrim MP said: “Because once you say that you will have a blanket policy of believing any complaint on sexual matters from any complainant, then you effectively create a presumption of guilt, whereas our system is built on a presumption of innocence.
“It's one thing to say that a complainant will be listened to sympathetically and matters investigated appropriately, but to say that the starting point is a blanket belief in what they say, I find quite quite astounding.
"And remember, this is an office with powers of arrest.
“Arrests are exercised on the basis of reasonable suspicion. If you inform that reasonable suspicion by a blanket belief, without attesting or checking what you're told, then it becomes very difficult indeed”.
Mr Allister said it was a “major blunder that, unfortunately, she didn't retreat from – she simply doubled down”.