Hello again everyone and thank you for joining me for another case of the week. My name is Kyle, I am one of the solicitors here at PJH Law and I will be walking you through an interesting current affairs case. For those who missed last week’s update, you can find that here. This week, we are having a peek outside the enclosure of employment law and into the recent high profile case of police vetting and procedure.

For any of you who have had a cursory glance over the news recently, I am sure you will be aware of this case. It is a point worth making right at the very start of this summary – police officers, like the military, are subject to different employment rights than other employees. However, some basic principles still apply between the two, most crucially Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to a fair trial.

The foundation of this case lies in the action demanded of the police and promised by the new commissioner in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder by a police officer. In that case, the officer responsible for her murder had concerning issues flagged during the vetting procedure which, if they had been addressed, may have prevented her murder.

The police sought to take stronger action against officers who failed the vetting process by subjecting them to disciplinary action.

The Claimant is a serving police officer of the Met Police. A decision was made to remove the Claimant’s vetting on 15 September 2023, with this decision being upheld on 15 February 2024. After this point the Claimant was placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the process. The reason for the removal was allegations of sexual misconduct.

Although the allegations were withdrawn and the Claimant had no case to answer, the decision to withdraw his vetting stood. The Court found that without the vetting in place, his dismissal was an inevitable outcome of any disciplinary process. The Court also found that there were no powers available to reconsider or reopen the vetting decision. Despite the allegations being withdrawn, from that point the process was predetermined..

While the Claimant had not been dismissed, he had been referred to a third stage meeting which was highly likely to conclude that dismissal was the only option. The Claimant sought a judicial review.

The court determined that any dismissal found be unlawful. The process did not comply with the Claimant’s right to a fair trial as they were not given any meaningful opportunity to defend themselves or provide evidence in a fair process. The recommendations were that this issue should be addressed through appropriate regulations should the government wish to change the process.

Takeaway Points

Wagamama and Sick Leave

While not directly applicable to employment law, this case underlines the importance of conducting a fair process. If an outcome is predetermined, there is no point in conducting it.

Ensuring that all potential outcomes and different sanctions are considered will assist in showing that the procedure and outcome was fair.

Not that this will be any consolation for the family of Sarah or the police commissioner, however, who are holding this judgement up as an undue restriction on their ability to dismiss dodgy police officers. It would not appear to be a difficult fix, however – just provide a process for challenge and remove the dodgy ones afterwards. We will have to see how things unfold moving forward.