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Police Scotland chief constable to step down early after negative publicity Police Scotland chief to step down early after series of failures
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The chief constable of Police Scotland is to step down earlier than planned following a barrage of negative publicity, according to reports. Sir Stephen House is to step down early as chief constable of Scotland after facing growing calls to resign following a series of policing failures and controversies over civil liberties under his leadership.
Sir Stephen House is expected to formally announce his departure at a meeting of the Scottish police authority on Thursday, the BBC said. He is expected to leave in three months, after previously indicating he was likely to leave his post when his four-year contract expires in September 2016. House has come under intense pressure after his force left a women dying after a car crash on a motorway verge for three days, the death of a black man in police custody, and rows over his use of armed police patrols and stop and search powers.
House and Police Scotland were heavily criticised after the death of Lamara Bell in a car accident on the M9. The seriously injured 25-year-old woman lay undiscovered for three days in her car, next to her dead boyfriend, after police failed to respond to a report of a motorway crash. Bell and her partner, John Yuill, 28, had been reported missing by friends after they were last seen early on 5 July. He confirmed his departure on Thursday by giving three month’s notice to a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority, the force’s governing body.
House also came under fire over armed officers being put on routine patrol and his force’s policies on stopping and searching juveniles. Eighty-three children under the age of 11 were stopped and searched in six months last year without any proof of a crime, a figure that dwarfs all other comparable figures anywhere in the UK. In a personal statement confirming his resignation, House said there was “never a convenient time to move on” from a large and complex organisation but said that after 35 years in policing he now felt it was the right time to look for new challenges.
Last month, Scottish Labour tabled a motion in the Scottish parliament calling for House’s resignation. Previously the chief constable of Strathclyde Police, House oversaw the complex amalgamation of Scotland’s eight regional police forces into the single national force, the second largest in the UK. The move has triggered much criticism. He made no reference to the controversies which dogged his tenure, insisting instead that he had modernised and improved Scottish policing. “From building confidence in victims coming forward to report crimes, to ending the postcode provision of specialist services, to improving our ability to respond to major incidents and events - I am proud of the hard work and commitment to the public, police officers and staff deliver each and every day,” he said.
The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Willie Rennie, who has been a fierce critic of the single force, said: “Decapitating the chief constable won’t solve the deep-rooted problems in Police Scotland. A new chief carrying on as if nothing is wrong will cement the problems rather than solve them. The early resignation of chief constable Stephen House reveals the chaos at the heart of Police Scotland.” Related: Lamara Bell 'was conscious' when rescuers found crashed car on M9
Rennie laid ultimate blame on the Scottish government. “Ultimately the SNP government must accept responsibility for this chaos. They rammed through the centralisation of our police service despite warnings. They set up the toothless Scottish Police Authority. They appointed the chief constable. House said he was immensely proud to have been Scotland’s first chief of a unitary force, adding: “Policing has always faced many challenges and will continue to do so. There remains much to do but knowing – as I do - the quality of our officers and staff, I am confident that the challenges will be met. The dedication and commitment of our people is outstanding.”
“With the departure of the chief constable, there is an urgent need for a wider inquiry into the operation of Police Scotland. Rank-and-file police officers and civilian staff are crying out for a fresh start.” A former Met police assistant commissioner and chief constable of Strathclyde, House was appointed the first chief constable of Scotland’s recently-unified single police force by Alex Salmond, then first minister, and had been due to retire in September 2016.
Brian Docherty, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, said: “Sir Stephen has made a monumental contribution to policing. I have little doubt that history will prove to be kinder to Sir Stephen than the current commentary, which at times has been vindictive and deeply personal. Opposition parties said Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister who several weeks ago refused to accept calls for his resignation, should admit that his early departure was evidence that the force was being underfunded and mismanaged.
“Many people feared that a single police service could be susceptible to political interference and those who have called for the head of the chief constable as some form of trophy need to consider that.” Amid continuing complaints about his robust management style and conflicts with the civilian leadership of the SPA, questions about his future came to a head after the controversy over the death of Lamara Bell, who died in hospital after being left severely injured in her boyfriends car for three days after a crash.
Police Scotland admitted that a local control room had been told of the crash on the M9 on Sunday 5 July; but it did not investigate until the following Wednesday when another driver reported seeing the crashed vehicle down an embankment.
Her partner John Yuill was found dead at the wheel and is believed to have died on impact; Bell was still conscious when she was found, her brother Martin has since said, and believed she had been in the car for 20 minutes before being found. Bell died a week later in hospital.
House appeared to blame the officer on duty that evening for the error, and rejected opposition allegations that it was the result of staffing cuts and poor training, forced on Police Scotland by government spending cuts.
The force is also under intense pressure over the death of Sheku Bayoh, who died on the pavement only minutes after being detained by police in Kirkcaldy on 3 May after he was hit by CS gas, pepper spray and batons. The 11 officers involved were not interviewed by investigators from the Police Investigations and Review Commission for more than 30 days, or forced to handover their notebooks until then.
Opposition MSPs and lawyers have also challenged House over his decision to allow armed officers on routine street patrols and routine call outs without full consultation. He has come under intense criticism too for a force-wide policy to stop and search tens of thousands of people without suspicion of a crime, including hundreds of children.
Scottish Labour, which had led calls for House to resign after the M9 crash, said he had done the right thing by resigning early. Graeme Pearson, its Holyrood justice spokesman and a former deputy chief constable of Strathclyde, said the problems facing the force went far beyond House and had to acknowledged by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister.
“Police Scotland has had to endure months of controversy which has seriously damaged public confidence in the police service. This could have been avoided if ministers had taken responsibility,” Pearson said. “Even now it isn’t too late for Nicola Sturgeon and her invisible justice minister to get a grip.”
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and the most vocal critic of the creation of a single force and its armed policing policy, said House’s decision “reveals the chaos at the heart of Police Scotland. Yet, this isn’t about the job of one man at the top but recovering the fortunes of the wider police force which is in the doldrums.
“Ultimately the SNP government must accept responsibility for this chaos. They rammed through the centralisation of our police service despite warnings. They set up the toothless Scottish Police Authority. They appointed the chief constable.”
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, said: “It’s essential that his replacement is up to the task of tackling the problems that have afflicted the single force since its inception. [The] fledgling force needs effective oversight at the very top if it is going to recover its reputation and regain the public’s trust.”
But House was defended by Vic Emery, chairman of the SPA who had had a combative relationship with the chief constable since the force’s creation after the merger of eight regional forces, and is also standing down. He was “the right individual at the right time” to lead Police Scotland through its “combined challenges of major reorganisation, fundamental reform, and reduced funding,” Emery said.
“Sometimes the public don’t always see the real person behind the public profile. Steve has always been a constable first, and a chief officer second. He has continued to see policing as a lifelong personal vocation, not simply a career ladder to climb.”
The Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers and has repeatedly defended House’s tenure and reforms, said he had made a “monumental contribution to policing” and accused opposition parties of seeking his resignation “as a trophy”.
Warning that House’s decision to stand down could be seen as a direct result of political interference in policing, Brian Docherty, the SPF chairman, said: “He has delivered the most significant public sector restructuring in a generation against a background of a brutal austerity agenda.
“He has delivered some very impressive policing results on crimes of violence, particularly domestic violence. I have little doubt that history will prove to be kinder to Sir Stephen than the current commentary which at times has been vindictive and deeply personal.”