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'Plebgate' Police Federation officers face IPCC probe | 'Plebgate' Police Federation officers face IPCC probe |
(35 minutes later) | |
Three Police Federation officers are to be investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over their role in the "Plebgate" affair. | Three Police Federation officers are to be investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over their role in the "Plebgate" affair. |
The three will be scrutinised over their account of a meeting with Andrew Mitchell in October 2012, over claims - denied by the then minister - he had called Downing Street officers "plebs". | |
A West Mercia Police-led investigation ruled the men "had no case to answer". | |
However, the IPCC has now decided to conduct a fully independent probe. | |
It follows a High Court ruling in October that found there was no proper final report prepared for the investigation - conducted by West Mercia Police but supervised by the IPCC - and that the decision of the three police forces that there was no case to answer for any of the officers was invalid. | |
Transcript differences | |
Following the "Plebgate" incident at Downing Street in September 2012, then-Chief Whip Mr Mitchell apologised for using bad language but said he had not used the word pleb when having a row with police officers guarding the street's main gate. | |
He later resigned as chief whip as the row continued. | |
A month later, Mr Mitchell held a meeting in his Sutton Coldfield constituency with Det Sgt Stuart Hinton, Insp Ken MacKaill and Sgt Chris Jones from the federation. | |
After the meeting, the three officers - who represented police in Warwickshire, West Mercia and West Midlands respectively - briefed the media. | |
But a transcript of a recording Mr Mitchell made of the meeting apparently contradicted the officers' account of what was said. | |
The matter was then referred to the IPCC, which decided not to conduct its own investigation but directed the forces the officers represented to launch their own inquiry. |