My hon. Friend is right. The Minister is doing her best; she does not decide the Government’s bureaucratic nonsense of decision-making strategies and all the rest of it. This is not her fault; she is left in a difficult situation, and I am the first to appreciate that. But as my hon. Friend says, at present we are not even getting a guarantee that these things will be in the guidance; we are being told they might be dealt with in the guidance, and even that there is an expectation that they might be. But I have been here long enough; I have been shafted before on private Members’ Bills where I have been promised that an amendment will be tabled in the Lords to deal with something and then it never arrives. So a bird in the hand is certainly worth more than two in the bush, particularly when it comes to Government promises on amendments and guidance in my experience. That is not a party political point; both sides have been guilty of that in the past. I am therefore looking for a bit more than a waft here and a waft there suggesting this might be covered in guidance; I am looking for something a bit more concrete than that. Indeed, I do not think it does the Bill justice if it goes through Parliament when it is not in a fit in a state; we all want to see it in a fit state.
My amendments 18 to 20 to clause 12 relate to police body cameras. I propose to change subsections (1) and (2) to say that police “should…try to”, rather than “must”, take a video recording. I also want to remove subsections (4) and (5) which make police “liable to criminal…proceedings” if they fail to take a video.
As the College of Policing has stated, it is an indisputable fact in today’s society that law enforcement officers carrying out their duties, and the tactics they use, are under greater scrutiny than ever before. That is a good thing, and I am a massive fan of police body-worn cameras; they are fantastic for the interests of justice, and they safeguard the interests of police officers, who often face vexatious complaints. The footage can be produced to show that what they did was absolutely right, which is almost always the case. That is fantastic for the courts, too, because they can see at first hand what actually happened, rather than have to deal with conflicting accounts and have to choose to believe one witness over another and so forth. I am therefore a big fan of body-worn video cameras, and they are often the modern method of detailing interactions with the public by the police. Their aim is to improve the accountability and transparency of police conduct when police officers encounter the public. This is a move that the Home Office highlighted at the time of their launch as being the technology of the future, and as a means to help save police time and improve working practices.
General procedure for using the devices is that they are to be used only for recording encounters with the public and are not to be constantly recording for the duration of a shift. The policy of West Yorkshire Police, which covers my area, on body-worn camera video advises that it is to be used where a degree of investigation or exercising police powers is required unless there is a good reason not to. The rationale for not using body-worn video cameras may need to be explained at a later stage, and justified to a supervisor and/or during court
proceedings. The recording must be proportionate, and the effect it may have on individuals and their privacy must be taken into account. It is advised that the cameras be switched on the moment the incident becomes apparent, and in some cases this may be en route for the incident. However, it is stated that officers must announce that they are using the recording equipment in clear wording: for example by saying, “I am wearing and using body-worn video. I just need to tell you that; you are being videoed and audio recorded.” The recordings taken are stored on the camera until they are returned to their docking station at the police station. From there, clips are downloaded and sent to the central system for viewing. These clips cannot be altered, changed or deleted by the officer in any way, which keeps them completely authentic for evidence purposes.
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The cameras differ between forces. At present there are a couple of different ones available and their performance is equally varied. Most common among forces, including West Yorkshire Police, are the reveal cameras. The device is rectangular in shape with a large proportion of it being a screen showing the other person that they are being recorded. The camera at the top of it is on a rotating axle so that it can be adjusted and repositioned each time it is used. It also has a switch at the side to flip up and down to switch it on, and that operates a red light that flashes to draw attention to the fact that it is recording. Alongside the flashing, it is also said to make a loud beeping noise for the same purpose as the flashing light, which I have been told is irritating and probably unnecessary. In essence, it is designed to be simple to use at short notice.
The effectiveness of such technology is clear. Results from randomised control trials have shown improved efficiency in delivering criminal justice by an increase in early pleas or higher prosecution rates. Alongside that, it is noted that the benefits of using these cameras may include improving public confidence, reducing crime, and reducing the number of complaints against police officers, and that they provide a useful tool for the training and professional development of police officers.
A US study of the use of these cameras, published in a scientific journal, was conducted in California in 2014. It examined the impact of body-worn video by measuring the number of incidents of police use of force and of complaints where officer shifts were assigned to either an intervention with cameras recording all contact with the public, for which there was a total of 489 shifts, or a control without cameras, a total of 499 shifts. The main findings were that body-worn video reduced police use of force by 50%. This was also reflected in the number of complaints falling from 24 in the previous year to just three in the year of the study. The authors of the study speculated that the video-taping of police-public interactions may result in socially desirable responses: when people know that they are being recorded, they tend to exhibit more desirable behaviours and are more likely to follow the rules of contact.
In the UK there were several trials of body-worn video ahead of a wider roll-out. Hampshire Constabulary conducted trials in 2013-14 and overall its findings were relatively positive. It noted a small reduction in overall incidents classified as crimes when compared with before and after pilots in other regions. When
interviewed, police officers recommended that they should focus on incidents most positively affected by body-worn videos such as low-level and high-volume incidents of public order and antisocial behaviour. In a public survey following this, it was found that 90% of people thought these cameras would help the police gather evidence, identify criminals and increase the likelihood of successful convictions.
At a trial in 2006-07 in Renfrewshire and Aberdeen there were also some positive outcomes. As in Hampshire, there was praise for the technology for making the public feel safer and improving public confidence in the police. There were more technical issues with the cameras then, however, and since 2013 Police Scotland officers have recorded a total of 302 faults with the equipment, with the total number of problems reportedly doubling from 57 in 2014 to 120 in 2016. It is estimated that the cameras are deployed up to 50,000 times annually in Scotland alone, and it is claimed that the number of reported incidents each year is approximately 0.03%. That percentage may not seem high, but in real terms it still represents a large number of incidents that are not being recorded because of problems with the equipment.
The faults include an inability to download videos, digitally assigning cameras to officers, and recordings from previous shifts still being present on the camera, alongside more functional issues such as short battery life and cameras taking a long time to warm up when they are switched on. These factors are all pertinent when putting provisions in a Bill such as this one. More recent generations of the technology have worked towards combating these issues. The on switch now goes on automatically with virtually no warm-up time. Battery capacity is now designed to cover the recording requirements of an entire shift, with the recording capacity to support two to three-hour video. Officers are also being given an option to charge the camera remotely via a USB.
The success of body-worn video has prompted other services to review how it could play a part in their working life. Recent trials have taken place in the Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s security department. The main issue is trying to combat antisocial behaviour and aggression towards staff, which the trust identified as generally coming from disruptive patients, who were the primary force behind the decision to use the cameras. Aggressive behaviour was divided into two categories: medical and non-medical—that is clearly unique to the NHS—and the vast majority of assaults on staff involved non-deliberate or medical violence, which derived from patients who were unwell. The trust stated that the move was taken to collect evidence, when needed, to share with the police.
During the pilot phase, one of the on-site hospital shops was burgled. The security officer present had used a body camera to record the incident, and the footage was shared with the police. The trust found that the cameras provided excellent support as a deterrence measure. Security staff reported that violence towards them had decreased dramatically as a direct result of wearing body cameras, with violence and aggression issues decreasing by 80% across the Christmas period. After the full 12-month trial, it was reported that medical and non-medical violence and aggression had decreased by 12%, and it was believed that this was due to the use of video cameras.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham also conducted a trial with the aim of reducing violence and aggression. During that study, the hospital encountered one particular patient who was known for fabricating allegations of being touched inappropriately while being assisted by staff. The hospital found that the camera provided a useful tool for protecting both staff and patient from any potential threat of sexual assault and from any allegations of sexual assault.
In short, I agree that the use of body-worn cameras is beneficial to the public and to the professionals who use them. Trials conducted by the police have shown that the benefits of using the equipment far outweigh any disadvantages. With technology developing at such a rapid pace, the opportunities for recording detailed accounts will give our services the ability to conduct their work with the security of reliable and unlimited technology. What must be considered, however, is the extension of the use of body-worn video fully to other services beyond the police. The trials in the NHS, to which I have just referred, show that there is a clear need for this, and it should be considered as part of this Bill.
To reiterate, I do not mean that all NHS staff should be equipped with a camera. They should be issued for use by those who are trained to conduct restraint of patients. The video should then be downloaded to a centralised system and added to the restraint data that the trust collects to be viewed. Again, it must be observed that written data on restraint are collected by hospital trusts. As I have previously mentioned, the video of such restraint would allow a full picture of the restraint to be observed for the evidential justification of such actions.
My point is that varying factors need to be taken into account in relation to the absence of a police video. I do not feel that they have been taken into account in the Bill. Stating that officers “must” take a video does not factor in the possibility of a scenario in which it is simply not possible to do that, or that there could be mitigating circumstances that will prevent them from doing it. Body-worn video has resulted in a marked improvement in reporting crime, and it has been rolled out to other services. Further to this, simple technology failures could make it difficult to produce a video. Making a police officer liable to criminal proceedings because they have not taken a video is excessive and absurd.