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Paragraphs: 15.27
- 15.40
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15.27
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The Inquiry heard from several witnesses that the CPTs were lacking
equipment essential to the proper conduct of their functions. Police
vehicles were scarce, computer equipment was outdated and inadequate,
and offices were poorly decorated and equipped.
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15.28
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As to the significance of these deficiencies, I have considerable
sympathy with the views of DAC Griffiths who told me, "I do not
believe that the lack of provision of resources such as IT, vehicles
and so on are actually a reason for not doing your job. Clearly
it is desirable for everyone to have the tools they need to do their
job but these were not tools that would prevent an officer performing
simple, straightforward tasks that are to do with the core role
of policing. So whilst I accept the desirability, I do not accept
that it is a reason for failing in your duty."
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15.29
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However, while inadequate facilities may in themselves have had
little direct impact on the manner in which Victoria's case was
handled, the less tangible effects may have been considerable. I
have already expressed the opinion that the CPTs in London were
given unacceptably low priority by the MPS as a whole. In addition,
the status of the work was low and there was little incentive for
high-calibre officers to apply for postings on the teams. The feeling
that one's work is not valued or considered important can have a
corrosive effect. It damages morale and leads to poor performance.
In light of this, and in view of my conclusion that the MPS failed
to provide CPTs with adequate equipment of a standard enjoyed by
many other branches of the force, I turn briefly to consider the
particular deficiencies which were brought to my attention.
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15.30
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When SO5 was formed in early 2000, the new management team discovered
that the 31 CPT sites had only seven police vehicles between them.
When one considers that there were approximately 10 staff working
from each site, it is clear that this level of provision was inadequate.
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15.31
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The undesirable consequence of this state of affairs was that officers
were obliged, where possible, to use their own cars for police business.
In my view, it is wholly inappropriate for officers to be expected
to transport detained suspects, or child victims being taken for
an interview, in their own private vehicles. Quite apart from the
potential insurance difficulties and a lack of necessary equipment
(such as child seats), it simply reinforces the impression of a
somewhat amateurish and low-priority operation.
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15.32
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I was very pleased to hear that there are now five times as many
vehicles allocated to the CPTs in London as there were in 2000.
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15.33
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The computer applications used by the MPS at the material time
were:
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CRIS - a crime recording system
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OTIS - an office management system
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CRIMINT - a criminal intelligence system.
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The evidence I heard indicated that the CPTs were limited in the
access they had to all three.
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15.34
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The problem appears to have been particularly acute with regard
to OTIS. Witnesses from all levels of the organisation stated that
there were few OTIS terminals readily available to CPT officers.
DI Anderson, for example, told me, "What we did not have, unfortunately,
was OTIS. You have heard about OTIS, effectively an important telecommunications
system within the Metropolitan Police, something which I had asked
for personally from the borough we were working for and been refused
it, and something which repeated requests I think from all the CPT
DIs have been made for, and we were simply assured that yes, we
would get it, but the timescale kept getting put back and back."
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15.35
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A similar picture was painted by Sgt Smith, who said, "I felt very
much that we were the poor relations in regard to information technology.
A system called OTIS has been mentioned. The OTIS system enables
communication throughout London by computers such as email, it allows
police notices and orders to be accessible to every police officer
in London at the touch of a button. OTIS was introduced in the Metropolitan
Police. I know that DI Anderson continued to try to get us access
to this, and the information that was fed back to us was that there
was a rolling programme and we were at the back end of this rolling
programme."
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15.36
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Even where a particular application was available for use by a
CPT, there was no guarantee that it was operationally effective.
Sgt Alan Hodges told the Inquiry, "When I arrived at Haringey Child
Protection Team they had two computers that were stand-alone systems,
very old, liable to break down on a regular basis. The only other
system we had was the CRIS system, which was causing us problems
at that time, technical problems. We also had access to OTIS but
we had one machine in the police station, it was one floor above
us, it was not our machine. Again we had link problems with the
main server, which virtually made it unusable for our staff.
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15.37
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When asked about the CRIMINT system, he said, "The problem we had
with CRIMINT, it was available to us on that one OTIS machine but
it would take 20, 30 minutes to be able to access the system, which
was not good enough. We could not spend 20, 30 minutes waiting by
a computer waiting for it to warm up."
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15.38
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PC Karen Jones's experience of using Haringey's CRIS machines was
similar. When asked if they were user-friendly, she replied, "No,
they would break down. The first one we had was just old, an old
machine. The station has stopped using that type of machine. The
new one that we got was the newer type that stations were using,
but they would still break down, they would often freeze, just lock.
You might get the screen and you could not get rid of the screen
whatever button you pressed."
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15.39
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The deficiencies in the IT facilities with which they were provided
by the MPS led some CPTs to develop their own individual methods
of recording referrals. The most obvious disadvantage of this practice
was that it meant that individual CPTs were operating virtually
in isolation, unable to share information electronically with their
counterparts in other boroughs. Apart from reinforcing the impression
of amateurishness surrounding the work of the CPTs, the practical
impact of this state of affairs is well illustrated by Victoria's
case. None of the officers in Haringey CPT ever became aware, before
her death, that Victoria had been the subject of police protection
in Brent a mere two weeks before she first came to their attention.
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15.40
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I was told by Commander Howlett and DCS Kelleher that the MPS is
planning to purchase and install systems called PROTECT and MERLIN,
which will vastly improve the IT capabilities of the CPTs. I hope
that this proves to be the case and that whatever the other advantages
of these systems may be, they will facilitate the effective exchange
of information between the capital's CPTs. Therefore, I make the
following recommendation:
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Recommendation
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The Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) should evaluate
the child protection IT systems currently available, and make recommendations
to chief constables, who must ensure their police force has in use
an effective child- protection database and IT management system.
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