Wednesday, 20 October 2021
The Met is changing how lone officers in plain clothes will verify their identity and purpose to lone women in the wake of Sarah Everard's kidnap in Clapham and subsequent murder.
The
majority of police officers patrol in uniform and in close proximity to other
colleagues, but there are limited occasions where a lone plain clothed officer
may need to engage with the public.
From
today, lone plain clothed officers, including those reacting to incidents
whilst off-duty, will proactively provide verification of their identity and
purpose to any lone woman they need to engage with using a video call to a
uniformed supervisor in one of our police operations rooms. This is in addition
to showing their warrant card.
The
uniformed supervisor in the control room will conduct the necessary checks and
provide reassurance that the officer is who they say they are and that they are
acting appropriately. They will also ensure the encounter is properly recorded.
The
video call will be made using the officer’s mobile device, but on the rare
occasion they don’t have their device, such as when they are off duty, the
officer will provide the woman with the telephone number to visually call the
operations room directly. All local operations rooms have been equipped with a
dedicated mobile device to make and receive these calls that utilise a range of
popular video calling services including FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom and
Google Duo.
They
can also call 999 directly, to ask for verification of an officer’s
identification and reassurance from the police control room if they prefer this
route, or if video calling is not available for any reason.
The
Met has consulted widely with key partners working to tackle violence against
women and girls on this process in order to ensure it provides the reassurance
that is needed.
Deputy
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, Frontline Policing, said: “It is very
unusual for a lone plain-clothed officer to engage with a lone woman. It is
simply not how we usually operate but there are some rare circumstances where
this could happen and we want to give all the reassurance we can.
“We
know we need to regain women’s trust and we fully accept that the onus is on us
to verify we are who we say we are and that we are acting appropriately -
that’s why we’ve introduced this system.
“We
hope that being able to see and speak to a uniformed colleague in what will
very visibly be a police operations room, and know that there is a proper
police record of the encounter, will provide the reassurance that we understand
is necessary.”
posted by Radio Jackie News Team @ 3:23 pm
