Police Injury Pensions Maladministration or Criminality?

A Call for an Independent Enquiry

This paper is intended primarily for former UK police officers and their families, serving officers and perhaps also any HR managers with responsibility for administration of police injury pensions. It is a call for an independent enquiry into the causes and consequences of the recent unlawful administration of police injury pensions. It asks if the maladministration became criminal, with offences committed against Section 4 of the Fraud Act fraud by abuse of position. It is motivated by a desire to see justice done and the guilty named and shamed so that disabled former officers and their families can finally draw a line under the issue. There is no statutory definition of maladministration, but it is described by the Local Government Ombudsman as: delay incorrect action or failure to take any action failure to follow procedures or the law failure to provide information inadequate record-keeping failure to investigate failure to reply misleading or inaccurate statements inadequate liaison inadequate consultation broken promises There are numerous 'watchdog' organisations that provide a conduit for complaints of maladministration and a means of resolution and redress, usually when other attempts have failed. The Pensions Ombudsman has dealt with numerous complaints from former officers and it it worth noting that it is not necessary for consequential injustice to be alleged There is no fixed definition of injustice but it can consist of: financial loss or unnecessary expense; hurt feelings, distress, worry, or inconvenience; loss of right or amenity; and time and trouble in pursuing a justified complaint Thus, injustice may well have been present in all the cases where former officers in receipt of a pension were caused inconvenience, distress, worry or even suffered hurt feelings. I am sure we would all agree we have had to take considerable time and trouble in pursuing our forces and police authorities over the maladministration of injury pensions and many have suffered adverse financial consequences.

To date, it seems clear that most IOD pensioners would have no difficulty agreeing that there has been widespread maladministration and injustice. However, it may well be that we should now consider if the actions and inaction of forces, police authorities and certain individuals went beyond maladministration and stepped over a line into criminal behaviour. There is plentiful information available on Scribd and elsewhere about the background to the recent difficulties surrounding police injury pensions, so it is not the intention here to go too much over old ground, but rather to propose a course of action that will help the healing process and help ensure future good administration of injury pensions. It is also time that those who were responsible for visiting such widespread distress were made to face the consequences of their appalling behaviour. Over the last few years we have witnessed, or been subjected to, maladministration resulting in dramatic and damaging reduction in the amount of injury pension paid. Disabled former officers, and their nearest and dearest have been dragged into an intensely stressful nightmare and have been forced to make strenuous efforts to protect their rights, and have incurred expense in so doing. Family relationships have been strained and quality of life diminished. It has been a long, slow and painful process, but decisions in the High Court and determinations by the Pensions Ombudsman have finally had the effect of forcing pension administrators to refund money unlawfully taken, and to restore pensions to their proper former level. It should be noted that in no instance did any force nor any police authority voluntarily take steps to put matters right. However, the saga is not yet over and the priority now must be to ensure that pensions are never again subject to similar maladministration. Whilst this fiasco ran its lengthy course some of of our colleagues have died whilst waiting for a resolution. Confidence in Chief Officers, HR managers, police authorities and SMPS has been shattered. There needs to be a healing process, bringing with it a restoration of confidence. Injury pensioners need to know they will be treated with dignity and respect and any future review of their pension will be conducted with scrupulous attention to the requirements of the Regulations. Serving officers, who at any time might be propelled suddenly into the ranks of retired, disabled, and on a pension, need to know that they too will be protected by the lawful administration of the Regulations. Anyone reading this who is aware of the wide-ranging attack on pensions granted to police officers injured in the line of duty must surely have thought, 'But how could this happen?' A good question, and one to which we have some part of the answer, but not yet the full picture. For that we need a comprehensive independent investigation. It seemed, looking back over the last few years that a sort of collective madness had seized those in charge of the administration of police injury pensions. Some 17 forces, together with their police authorities, made a choice to abandon common sense and the Regulations and to follow guidance issued by the Home Office guidance that said it was a good idea to reduce all injury pensions to the lowest possible level when pensioners reached the age of 65. The guidance also proposed the use of a device (ASHE) at normal force retirement age that would reduce pensions at that point. We know that the Home Office guidance, issued in August 2004 in the form an Annex C to HO circular 46/2004 was the trigger. The target was to reduce pension payments made to disabled former officers. So, who are those who fired the gun?

They are everyone who either actively took up the HO guidance or stood idly by, neglected their professional duty and allowed what has been dubbed the great pension robbery to take place. They are those who issued the guidance, and those who gave it tacit or specific approval. The people with prime responsibility must be Chief Constables, who are expected to prevent and detect crime and who held delegated responsibility for the lawful administration of injury pensions. Senior HR managers would be expected to advise the Chief Constable and, as qualified professionals, understand the requirements of the Regulations. Police authorities hold ultimate responsibility for decisions over whether and when reviews might take place, and their Chief Executive Officers, who usually hold the role of Monitoring Officer, and are expected to report on likely contraventions of law and to provide and maintain high standards of conduct by the authority members. The SMP, who acts in an independent statutory quasi-judicial role is expected to understand the Regulations and not to take instructions on what decisions he should come to. Depending on the local situation, other people may also have played a part in the maladministration, especially where they would be expected to ensure correct procedures or warn of deficiencies in process. If any one of these people had hacked into your bank account and set up a standing order to divert thousands of pounds a year into their own accounts, they would, quite rightly, face being arrested and charged and could expect severe penalties. Yet, not one person seems to have been disciplined, admonished, or given even a mild ticking off. Nobody has lost their job though one or two have 'retired' or moved on elsewhere. We have no indication that pension administrators have been given extra training, or that better systems of supervision and oversight have been put in place. There seems to be no change in the fundamental deficiencies that allowed the maladministration to run unchecked for so long. There seems to be little or no change in attitude, with pensioners still seen as an expensive drain on resources rather than as honoured former colleagues. We are led to believe that it was all just a simple, understandable and forgiveable slight error of administrative process. We are asked to believe that people were doing what they thought was the right thing at the time. Hogwash! To me, and I suspect, to many other injury pensioners, this does not seem like justice. Yes, we have had our pensions restored, and yes, some forces have apologised, but until the guilty are brought to justice and required to account for their behaviour there can be no hope of reconciliation and no removal of the nagging concern that it could all happen again. You see, I think it entirely possible that what we were forced to undergo was not plain vanilla maladministration. That alone would be bad enough, but I believe there may also have been criminality. Injury pensioners should be looking at the evidence and making firm demands for an independent enquiry under the supervision of the Police Complaints Commission and Crown Prosecution Service. A constant theme running throughout the difficulties has been suspicion by the pensioners, and denials by the administrators, that a desire to save money lay at the heart of things. We have, however, seen documents where calculations were made, working out how much money might be saved, or spent, in conducting reviews of injury pensions. National NARPO made public its opinion that the desire to save money was the driving force behind the HO guidance being implemented. Indeed, the potential savings must have looked very inviting. Perhaps sufficiently inviting to cause some people to decide to break the law. 3

I invite injury pensioners who continue to hold a desire to see justice fully applied to the situation to look at the law, and then to look at the evidence in their own area and in their own experience of being a victim of maladministration, with a view to seeing if criminal offences may have been committed. The law is straightforward. It is set out in Section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006. This section deals with fraud by abuse of position. Below, I will deal with the 'points to prove' and place them in the context of our experiences of dealing with the administrators of injury pensions. Fraud Act 2006 Section 4 (1) A person is in breach of this section if he (a) occupies a position in which he is expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of another person, (b) dishonestly abuses that position, and (c) (i) (ii) intends, by means of the abuse of that position to make a gain for himself or another, or to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

(2) A person may be regarded as having abused his position even though his conduct consisted of an omission rather than an act. You will note that there are several elements that would need to be evidenced and proved before a conviction could result. Firstly, someone must be in a position in which he is expected to safeguard, or not act against, the financial interests of another person. That seems to cover anyone who had any part in the administration of police injury pensions. It would include all members of a police authority, who have a statutory duty to '. . . secure an efficient and effective police service and to hold the Chief Constable to account for the exercise of his functions and those of persons under his/her direction and control, having regard to the views of the people in the Authoritys area in carrying out all their functions.' The police authority also must '. . . monitor issues complained about by members of the public and intervene where it appears to the Authority that the response of the Force is unsatisfactory, ensuring that the member of the public receives a response which is satisfactory.' So, the police authority is legally obliged to hold the Chief Constable to account for the exercise of his functions chief among which is the prevention and detection of crime. In most force areas the 4

police authority has delegated the administration of police injury pensions to the Chief Constable, who in turn has further delegated day-to-day administration to HR personnel. However, delegation does not remove responsibility and the police authority is responsible for making certain decisions under the Regulations, specifically whether and when a review of an injury pension would be appropriate. Thus we can begin to understand that there is a reciprocal responsibility here the Chief Constable should ensure the police authority is aware of, and approves of any decisions made in force about whether or when to conduct a review, and the police authority has a responsibility to see that the Chief Constable provides adequate supervision so that his officers or staff work within the law, and if they break the law, to take appropriate steps. It is entirely possible that in some force areas, the police authority took no part whatever in making the decisions that were its responsibility they would have been made somewhere down the chain of delegation through the Chief Constable. This does not remove the police authority from blame, rather the opposite. Delegation does not mean abandonment of responsibility and the police authority should have retained an oversight of decisions made on their behalf and should have stepped in to query, alter or quash decisions that it should have identified as unlawful. I believe we have endured a period of time where police authorities were content to let Chief Constables administer injury pensions without any attempt to enquire how they were doing this, or to enquire about decisions taken on the authority's behalf. In the worst of scenarios this was a sort of silent agreement among thieves, with both parties expecting to see financial benefits from the implementation of the HO guidance. It is also entirely probable that certain people regularly conferred with colleagues and contacts in other force areas concerning the administration of injury pensions and the concerns that were being raised about unlawful application. I refer specifically to the National Attendance Management Forum a meeting which takes place at the Tally Ho! facility of West Midlands Police. Delegates include personnel from all 43 forces in England and Wales, and from the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Delegates are drawn mainly from HR departments but other attendees are some force solicitors and uniformed officers, plus a self-styled pensions expert who is a former officer, and representatives of the Home Office. The Home Office claimed that the guidance it gave in Annex C to HO circular 46/2004 was informed by 'round the table discussions' that took place at this Forum, so the importance of questioning the role and intentions of the delegates cannot be over-emphasised. It is beyond belief that the administrators of police injury pensions were unaware of the very great level of concern that pensions were being unlawfully reviewed. Anyone in a position of responsibility or authority who failed to act must be included in any investigation. Concerns were raised and complaints were made in many cases very public complaints that pensions were being subjected to maladministration. Letters were written. The media printed articles. The Police Federation and NARPO made representations. The furore reached the ears of our elected representatives in Westminster. In 2005, an early day motion in the House of Commons was signed by 134 MPs. It said, 'That this House notes that a number of retired police officers who have been receiving injury awards face having those awards cut when they reach statutory 5

retirement age; further notes that many of those officers believed that the awards would be paid to them for life; further notes that awards of this kind were normally made to officers injured while engaged in protecting the interests of the public; and calls on the Government to investigate whether officers have been misled about the rules that would apply to their awards.' Later, the High Court and the Pension Ombudsman produced decisions that showed actions by forces and police authorities had been unlawful. Did your police authority step in and halt reviews? Did it ask your Chief Constable, on the record, to provide an explanation for continuing to conduct reviews despite mounting evidence that the HO guidance was deeply flawed and advised unlawful actions? Did your police authority ensure that any complaint you made received a satisfactory response? Was your Chief Constable someone who you expected to safeguard your pension, and not to act against your financial interest in receiving the amount due under the Regulations? And how about the personnel in HR, or the wages department or professional standards? What about the SMPs and the companies that supplied them? Why did they remain silent? Didn't a single one of them have even a glimmer of doubt that it just might not be lawful to reduce the pension of disabled persons from band four to band one, with the result very possibly being pensioners not having enough income to meet the bills and being forced to sell their homes? I am minded of one Police Medical Appeal Board hearing where the board were asked by the police authority representatives to consider that, 'The Appellant has given no reason of penury or destitution to the SMP as cogent arguments for continuing to receive a higher band award.' Did nobody have the moral fortitude to raise a query about the propriety of what was going on? Let me give you one example that illustrates how these 'responsible' people, in positions of authority, not only failed to voice doubts they actually defended their actions. In Northumbria a total of 70 cases were referred to the SMP for review on the ground that the former officer had reached the age of 65. Dr Broome, the SMP, dealt with all 70 cases on the same day the 20 th February 2009. In each case he reduced the degree of disablement to Band 1. His reasons were expressed in a letter of that date which reads: 'I am advised that the Pensioner has reached State Retirement Age and therefore, in accordance with the Regulations, the Pensioner "no longer has an earning capacity for the purposes of the Police Injury Benefit Regulations". Northumbria Police has also determined that there is no "cogent reason" why the Pensioner should not, therefore, be considered to have 0% loss of earnings capacity and as a consequence of their injury, and should be placed in the 0-25% Degree of Disablement banding. I confirm that the above recommendations are consistent with the Regulations and I attach a revised Statement of Injury' Are those the words of an independent professional, acting in a quasi-judicial role, or the words 6

of a hired hand explaining how he was directed to follow his master's bidding? It could all have been an unfortunate misunderstanding at least that is what some Chief Constables would have us believe. They would say that, wouldn't they? In fact, they have to put that spin on things, for to do otherwise is to admit dishonesty. Which is the next, and most important of the elements of Section 4 of the Fraud Act that needs proof. Dishonesty is not defined, but it is generally agreed by the courts that the correct test for dishonesty should be: would the conduct be deemed to be dishonest by the ordinary standards of honest people, and if so, did the person committing the dishonest act know that by those standards his or her conduct would be regarded as dishonest I think we can all provide the response to the first part from where we were sitting it all looked very dishonest, and many of us told our Chief Constables and others concerned exactly that. For the second part, consider that the personnel concerned are all in one way or another fully cognisant that they are working in professions that have, and expect, the highest standards of ethical behaviour. Most police forces and police authorities have policies setting out those standards, and I need hardly mention that Doctors are almost defined by compliance to high ethical standards. So, everyone involved would be hard pressed to claim innocence of knowledge of dishonesty. Dishonesty may be the most vital part of the offence to prove, and will be the area where innocence is most likely to be claimed. 'We were only dong what we were told to do.' 'We thought the Home Office guidance was automatically sound.' 'We thought we would wait until the situation was clearer.' However, as always, dishonesty can be shown by how people acted, or failed to act. Chances are, if you, as a reasonable person, think someone's behaviour has been dishonest, then it will have been, and a jury would be likely to agree with you. Note if you will, that you don't need to have actually had your pension reduced to have been subjected to criminality. The Fraud Act makes clear that the intent to 'to expose another to a risk of loss' is sufficient. If it was the intention of the force to require you to submit to a pension review in the expectation that the SMP would possibly drop you down a band, or even alter your degree of disablement down so that a further review, and another few points reduction, would tip you down into a lower band, then that may be sufficient. Any review held because you had reached normal force retirement age would be a prime candidate for an exposure to risk of loss. All age 65 reviews are inevitably to be included as they particularly were intended to result in reduction to band one. The key point to consider is this: was the review held because, and only because there was some indication that you individually had most likely experienced a substantial alteration in degree of disablement? If you were merely routinely reviewed, as part of a programme or schedule for reviews, then the review will have been a fishing expedition, and unlawfully held. If it was unlawfully held, then you were unlawfully exposed to a risk of loss. 7

Remember, omitting to act to protect a person's financial interests is as much an offence as is actually setting out to expose a person to the risk of loss. A time line is a useful way of highlighting events and indicating particular periods where pension administrators should have taken stock. I have laid out a skeleton one below. IOD pensioners could add local events to it so they are placed in the wider context. There is evidence that the Home Office was advising forces before 2002 that pensions could be reduced as pensioners reached a certain age. In a letter dated 8th July 2002, Michael Ruff of the Police Pensions and Retirement Section at the Home Office advised: 'As it appears that the Regulations do not currently permit an injury award to be cancelled merely because of the age of the pensioner, we have in the past advised that police authorities may wish to consider using the lowest banding for injury awards from age 60 because of the expectation of lower earnings from this age.' Did your force receive any such advice, and if so who received it, and what was their reaction to it? on the 18th May 2004, a few short weeks before HO circular 46/2004 was issued, Mr Giffard, then Chief Constable of Staffordshire, writing on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers told the Home Office, 'We continue to think that at that stage [age 65 years] anybody in receipt of an injury award should be automatically dropped to the lowest band, or possibly even completely dropped.' How could such a senior officer, representing ACPO, make a statement that essentially is a call to others to break the law? It could be argued that from the moment HO circular 46/2004 was published, back in August 2004, alarm bells should have sounded. It was so obviously proposing actions that nobody had previously taken that it must have caused honest folk to doubt the lawfulness of following its advice. We have proof that this is what must have happened in the majority of forces, for only 17 or so out of the 43 forces in England and Wales implemented the guidance. They rejected the guidance for good reason, yet other forces did not take this as an indication that they ought to consider why. From there it was soon made obvious that many misgivings were being aired not least from NARPO and the Federation, but also from individuals. Again, an honest person would have revisited the issue in the light of those misgivings. Nevertheless some 17 forces set about implementing the guidance and began a 'more robust' approach to reviews, with some forces setting out to review all injury pensioners, and others targeting those aged 65 and over as the best, fastest, way of reducing pension payments. The early day motion mentioned above was tabled on the 23rd November 2005. It specifically mentions that pensioners might have been 'misled'. It was an early opportunity to pause for thought. 8

Reviews nevertheless continued. On Wednesday the 4th November 2009 the Rt. Hon. Sir Alan Beith, MP for Berwick upon Tweed stood in the House of Commons and asked the Prime Minister: Mr Prime Minister, is the government aware that several police authorities, including Northumbria, are using Home Office guidance as a basis for cutting the pensions of police officers who have been forced to retire early when they have been seriously injured on duty, and on the principle that we should stand by those who have risked their lives and face serious injury protecting us, whether in the armed forces or in the police, will you take a personal interest in this and investigate this? The Prime Minister replied: I shall obviously look at this matter. When policemen or women retire they receive the pension. I see no reason why their pension entitlement should be broken, if it is indeed an entitlement, and I shall look at what he says. Reviews nevertheless continued. By now, an alert and honest Chief Constable, HR manager, CEO or Chair of a Police Authority, an ethical SMP, an honest force solicitor, would have perhaps decided that a close look at the Regulations vis a vis the HO guidance would be in order. Perhaps they might have also felt that a quick bit of research into any relevant case law and a phone call to the Pensions Ombudsman might be a sensible move to make. If anyone had bothered to do so, they would have found the case of Crocker. If nothing so far had shaken their confidence in the rightness of the HO guidance, this case should have rattled it into fragments. It was heard in the High Court in December 2003 that is, eight months before the guidance was issued. The case is a complex one, but two passages would leap out to any professional, such as a Chief Constable, or a member of a police authority with law degree, an alert SMP or an honest force solicitor: The task, in my judgment, in assessing earning capacity is to assess what the interested party is capable of doing and thus capable of earning. It is not a labour market assessment, or an assessment of whether somebody would actually pay him to do what he is capable of doing, whether or not in competition with other workers. I consider that what has to be disregarded is every factor which has affected the loss of earning capacity other than the duty injury. Reading that, and noting that the whole underpinning for the the HO guidance was the assumption that every injury pensioner would experience a total loss of earning capacity merely because he or she had reached the age of 65, any honest person would have wondered how the HO could have issued 9

such guidance. Reviews nevertheless continued. Research into Annex C of HO circular 46/2004 showed that the author had been 'economical with the truth.' It was claimed in the guidance that a 'recent survey' had shown that there was 'diverse' practice when former officers reached normal force retirement age. It stated a 'recent survey' had found that, 'Some forces automatically reduced degree of disablement benefits to the lowest banding when this age had been reached - others continued to pay benefits at the same rate until the death of the Officer concerned.' This was a complete lie. There had been no survey. Moreover, from 1987 to 2003 not a single injury pension was ever reduced as a result of the former officer attaining either normal force retirement age or state retirement age of 65, contrary to the claims of the Home Office. The research findings were therefore compelling they caught the Home Office out as acting in an underhand and manipulative manner and should have caused anyone in a position of responsibility for the administration of injury pensions to consider whether or not the guidance could be relied upon and whether the advice it offered was lawful or not. The research was presented to the Home Office, which made no comment and no move to attempt any challenge to the findings. Nor did the Home Office move to amend or withdraw the guidance a stance it maintained until the relevant parts of the guidance were declared unlawful by the High Court in 2012. The research was also presented to numerous Chief Constables, police authorities and others. It was posted on the Internet for public consumption. Not a single voice raised any challenge to the research findings and yet not a single force or police authority made any move to revisit their approach to reviews of injury pensions. Reviews continued. Readers will be familiar with the High Court cases that began to question the legality of the way some forces were administering police injury pensions - all of which found in favour of the pensioners. The first of these were Pollard, in February 2009 followed by Turner, in July 2009. In August 2009, the Pensions Ombudsman made a determination in the case of Ayre, that, '. . . the Guidance cannot override the relevant Regulations.' He also made it clear that at age 65 any assessment of degree of disablement could not assume there had been a total loss of earning capacity. Reviews nevertheless continued. On the 11th September 2009 the then Minister of State for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing, David Hanson, announced at the annual conference of the National Association of Retired Police Officers (NARPO) that he had ordered a review of the guidance. The promised revision never materialised and reviews continued. A Police Medical Appeal Board, one of many that had resulted from implementation of the HO guidance, was convened in January 2010. This was a seminal hearing, chaired by Dr David 10

Wallington, one time Director of Occupational Health for the Metropolitan Police. He concluded: 'The Board, in recognising the Police Authoritys case in respect of the Home Office Guidance and the Guidance to Police Medical Appeal Boards, nevertheless consider that they have no alternative but to observe the Police Benefit Regulations where there is no mention of such an argument as cogency, or indeed no specific mention of degree of disablement after age 65. There is no mention in the Regulations that a review of degree of disablement at any time requires an alternative methodology.' The Police Medical Appeal Boards were effectively giving due notice to all concerned that they recognised the Home Office guidance was flawed. Reviews nevertheless continued. On the 12th of November 2009 former Metropolitan Police officer Belinda Laws won her case in the High Court. Towards the end of 2009 several forces unilaterally suspended reviews. Thus, after five years and numerous lost opportunities to take corrective action, finally some forces realised they ought to act. Too little, too late. The suspension of reviews was not accompanied with a restitution of unlawfully reduced pensions, nor an apology, nor a review of procedures. On the 10th of March 2010 the Home Office wrote to all forces advising that reviews be suspended. At this point one would have anticipated that all forces who had been caught up in the enthusiasm for implementation of the HO guidance would have realised the time had come for them to commence a complete rethink. Instead, they remained as though transfixed, apparently waiting for some direction from the Home Office. There was no reason to wait for any further guidance or advice from that source as everything necessary to bring about a return to a lawful administration of police injury pensions was readily available in the form of the Regulations, recent case law and Pension Ombudsman determinations. Reviews ceased, but disabled officers and their families, continued to suffer uncertainty and anxiety. Those pensioners whose payments had been reduced did not have them reinstated. On the 13th October 2010 the Metropolitan Police Authority's appealed against the Belinda Laws decision and lost. Nothing much happened throughout 2011. Forces and police authorities remained largely inactive on injury pension issues but there was then a rash of forces making provision for pensions to be repaid and restored to previous levels. The case of Crudace was held in January 2012. His Honour Judge Behrens released a judgement quashing the decision of the Northumbria police to reduce Mr Crudaces pension when the former Inspector reached the age of 65. He decided the Home Office guidance was unlawful because it was inconsistent with the statutory scheme under which the pensions were paid. Judge Behrens also confirmed former police officers who have had their pensions reduced in this way are entitled to 11

apply to the police authority for the decisions to be reversed and for their pensions to be restored. This was shortly followed by the case of Simpson in February 2012, which also declared that parts of the HO guidance was unlawful. The situation now is confusing for some injury pensioners. Most have had their pensions restored to previous levels but none, save in one force, have witnessed any movement by their Chief Constable or their police authority to consider how injury pensions will be administered in future. This is not good enough, for it does not inspire confidence that further attacks on pension payments won't be made. The time line above is only a brief outline of the major events. Locally, former officers will know of other events that all chart the progress of the maladministration, highlighting intervals where their force or police authority, or their SMP should have acted but did not. Any failure to act needs to be weighed against Section 4 of the Fraud Act: 'A person may be regarded as having abused his position even though his conduct consisted of an omission rather than an act.' Pensioners will no doubt have letters, emails and records of conversations, minutes of meetings and other documents that provide the fine detail of evidence of inaction. Did people in positions of responsibility omit to voice concerns, or respond to our concerns? Did they fail to act, when action was called for? Pensioners might care to consider if there is evidence of dishonesty and fit their local evidence into the wider picture. The questions to be asked are, 'Why did my force or police authority not act sooner to suspend reviews and restore pensions?' and 'Why did nobody in a position of responsibility not question the lawfulness of what was going on?' A further question, to be asked with the combined voices of all the injury pensioners and their families is, 'How did this happen?' These questions deserve answers, and I believe they should be sought by an independent investigation by a body supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Crown Prosecution Service. Pensioners might therefore see it as their duty to ask locally for such an enquiry. We were all sworn officers once and could not stand idly by whilst a crime was being committed, nor fail to take action if a crime was complained of. Two such requests have already been made, in Cambridgeshire and in West Yorkshire. It is already anticipated that a local enquiry would have to very quickly extend to investigating the role of the Home Office, the National Attendance Management Forum, the SMP and the Limited Company providing SMP services and the Association of Chief Police Officers. The purpose of the enquiry would be to determine to what extent, if any, maladministration spilled over into criminality. If widespread calls for enquiries are made, then perhaps the need for a national enquiry would become obvious and irresistible. Only when pensioners can be assured that the stables have been cleaned and that no-one remains who is still secretly wishing to find future ways of subverting the Regulations and visiting misery on disabled former officers and their families can we begin to feel confident in those who administer our pensions. 12

Write, if you feel it the proper thing to do, to your Chief Constable, with a copy to the CEO of the police authority. Ask for an independent enquiry. Briefly explain that you have concerns there may have been criminal offences committed. Quote Section 4 of the Fraud Act. Explain that implementing the HO guidance when it was so obvious to you and many others that it was unlawful, failing to engage in consultation before implementing the HO guidance, failure to act to suspend reviews when there was so much controversy, failing to respond to the decisions in the High Court and by the Pensions Ombudsman, all seem to indicate fraud by abuse of position. You don't need to provide all the evidence all that is needed is to raise the concern that there may have been offences. Uncovering the evidence would the the job of the enquiry.

Please sign the petition calling for an enquiry - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/39147 If you have any comments on this paper, or would like to recount instances of what you believe to be offences against the Fraud Act in your force or police authority, or elsewhere, then please address them to the author at wdtk@gmx.com If you are a former officer on an injury pension then you will probably already know that news and discussion, plus support, is available at www.pipin.org.uk The research paper on Annex C, and other relevant documents mentioned are available on www.scribd.com/wdtk as is this paper.

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