The "believe the victim" directive to British police.

political analyst

In this article in The Spectator on 12 February 2021, the barrister Matthew Scott wrote that the 'believe the victim' directive is still very much alive at national level in Britain, even though retired judge Sir Richard Henriques, in his report on the Operation Midland fiasco, said that the directive should cease.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-police-haven-t-learned-from-the-operation-midland-disaster

Last year, a Justice Inspectorate report found confusion and anxiety among officer about the Metropolitan Police's policy actually is. In relation to this report, Scott wrote:

"One officer told the inspectors that ‘because she had been told always to believe a victim, she didn’t think she would ever disbelieve,’ a bizarre reversal of the traditional copper’s ABC: ‘Assume nothing, Believe nothing, Check everything.’ Others made the perfectly sensible point that whatever the official policy is, officers cannot be made to believe things that they don’t actually think are true. There seems to be a subtle distinction between ‘believing a victim’ for reporting purposes (which is encouraged) and ‘believing a victim’ for investigative purposes (which is not)."

Norfolk police chief constable Simon Bailey told a Cumberland Lodge webinar in January this year that 'victims should come forward and be believed' and that then the investigation should proceed impartially. On this point, Scott wrote:

"It is extraordinary that this nonsense is still seriously being promulgated by the most senior officers in the country."

Scott states that the police's apparent desire to believe that false accuser Carl Beech alone was responsible for the Operation Midland fiasco is wrong because Beech was simply a liar (not even a good one) who was greedy for cash, fame and adulation and who would have got nowhere if it hadn't been for the 'believe the victim' directive. As Scott wrote in the penultimate paragraph, neither the Metropolitan Police nor the College of Policing has learned from the fiasco and the public is entitled to ask:

"If that was the standard of policing in one of the most high-profile inquiries of recent times, conducted by the cream of the country’s finest police force, what hope is there for the fair investigation of ordinary historic cases? What chance does justice stand when officers say they are incapable of disbelieving a ‘victim’?"

Scott is calling for a full, open and independent judicial inquiry into Operation Midland, and the way that other inquiries into historic sexual allegations have been investigated.

To be honest, I'm puzzled as to why nobody has taken judicial review proceedings against the College of Policing with a view to having the 'believe the victim' policy struck down.

Heighway61

I've no affiliation with the legal profession and would be ignorant in matters legal. What this situation does do for me is make me wonder how many innocent people have been jailed for historical sexual assault allegations.

How do victims prove an assault? How do the innocent accused prove a negative in the face of malice or delusion?

The attitudes described in the article are not only found in the police but also in other state agencies with power.

Potential-Monke

From my own days of a Garda, nothing anyone says is the truth. It's just evidence. It's the job of the police to investigate and present the evidence to the DPP who then decides what to do with it. This "Believe the Victim" stuff is a front that cops put on in order to make sure that the person reporting believes they are taking it seriously. And most will. But a complaint is not evidence.

And to correct Heighway61, those attitudes are in every job, not just the public service. But because it's the public service, it comes to light easier.

Heighway61

Is there not the danger that we can swing or have swung too far in the opposite direction in the attempt to right the past wrongs where victims were often not listened too?

A person close to me was maliciously accused and the state came at them all guns blazing. They haven't and never will get over it. The mud will never wash off.

political analyst

https://insidetime.org/police-drop-believing-victims-policy/

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920564#Comment_117920564

https://www.thejusticegap.com/chronic-liar-charged-with-perverting-the-course-of-justice-over-false-allegations/