Press Release: Police Negligence
A family has been awarded compensation by the European Court of Human Rights after the police raided their home. The youngest members of the family were 2 and 3 years-old at the time. Basic checks would have revealed that the people the police were looking for had long-since moved away.
In this country, you cannot normally sue the police if they are negligent. It does not matter how serious the mistake was or if it could have been easily avoided. The consequences for the victim do not matter. Nor does the cost to the tax-payer in wasted police resources.
The traditional view is that the police should be allowed to make those mistakes. If they were worried about having to do their job properly, they might not do their job at all.
This logic does not apply to most other people. It doesn’t apply to lawyers or doctors. It doesn’t apply to engineers, architects, builders, bus drivers…. The list goes on.
Why? Because accountability improves standards - people try harder to make sure avoidable mistakes don’t happen. Why should anyone think that the police would react any differently?
This recent court case paves the way for people to try bringing claims against the police if they are negligent. It won’t result in a flood of claims. The vast majority of police officers do their jobs well. Sometimes they make mistakes, but so does everybody. Mistakes don’t always result in legal action.
All it will mean is that police officers will have to do their job to the same standard as everybody else.
There have been a lot of negative comments recently about Human Rights legislation, mainly from people with political motives. The family that had their home broken into were not criminals. They were not terrorists. Human Rights laws protect everyone.
See our Human Rights section if you have experienced problems with the police.