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The complaint reports completed by WMP into the officers under criminal investigation

  1. In the other complaint reports WMP submitted to the PCA and SYP, a common theme was that the matters under investigation as complaints were the same as those under criminal investigation. WMP therefore argued that if the DPP did not find sufficient evidence to charge the officer(s) with a criminal offence, they could not be deemed to have committed the police disciplinary offence either. 
     
  2. When the DPP announced there would be no criminal charges, SYP (who had the responsibility to decide on how to proceed in relation to the complaints) concluded that no disciplinary offences had been committed. This reflected the fact that, at the time, an officer could only be found guilty of a disciplinary offence if it was proven to the same standard as required for a criminal offence (that is, beyond reasonable doubt). This changed in 1999. Today, the standard of proof for police disciplinary investigations is the civil standard, on the balance of probabilities.
     
  3. While this justified WMP’s argument, it meant that the same flaws in the criminal investigation—such as the poor quality of the suspect interviews—also affected the complaints investigations. 
     
  4. There were also some instances where the actions under investigation did not directly correspond to a criminal offence. For example, PC Illingworth was being investigated for the criminal offences of manslaughter and culpable malfeasance (also known as misconduct in public office). According to one of the disciplinary notices issued against him, PC Illingworth was also investigated for the disciplinary offence of abuse of authority. This was in relation to the allegation that he had mouthed abusive comments to supporters inside the pens. There was no parallel criminal offence to this, but the disciplinary investigation was discontinued.