‘This is not the Greater Manchester Police the public deserve’, says Chief Constable

We spoke to Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, to get his reaction to Dame Vera Baird’s review.

Stephen Watson: It makes for appalling reading and the examples that Dame Vera has highlighted in her report fall into the category of genuinely indefensible. As a result, I have given a heartfelt apology to those who’ve been affected by it, and it doubles up our determination to continue GMP’s improvement journey. Because this is not the GMP that the public deserve.

Clare Fallon: So has anyone in this report, from GMP, faced any kind of disciplinary action?

Stephen Watson: As you know, there are a number of live investigations, some of those within GMP, some of those external to GMP with the IOPC where they’re being independently investigated. Those inquiries, those investigations, need to run their course. But if you look at our track record of rooting out and booting out those not fit to wear the uniform, under my watch there’s a three fold increase in that. This isn’t the odd bad apple. This is us, through a really rigorous approach to what quality and standards and behaviour looks like, getting stuck into those facets of GMP that take us back to the old ways where the force was in special measures. I’ve personally thrown 86 people out of the organisation and candidly, we will continue to do that.

Clare Fallon: Are you now committing to ending strip searches when they are for supposed reasons of welfare or to prevent self-harm?

Stephen Watson: Yes.

Clare Fallon: That will stop entirely, will it?

Stephen Watson: Yes it will. So we have a programme of work to reflect both the spirit and the practicality of these recommendations. I do not think it justified that we continue to strip search people for their own good, because all of the evidence is that actually we do more harm than good.

Clare Fallon: Last year, we came to you with the cases of two women who had clearly been strip searched. In one of those cases, we could see it there on the custody footage. She was being strip searched, and your police force adamantly said they hadn’t been strip searched.

Stephen Watson: Look, insofar as individual examples where we have got things wrong, we simply have to acknowledge that. This report points to the fact that there have been systemic weaknesses in terms of managing complaints, managing processes, lax record keeping, all of those things that are front and centre in terms of the action plan already put in place.

Clare Fallon: But I asked Dame Vera Baird whether, in all of that footage that she had looked through, she ever saw another cop who was in the area where something was happening calling it out.

Stephen Watson: Yeah.

Clare Fallon: She said she didn’t see it once.

Stephen Watson: There is an increased number of our own staff who call these things out and do so in increased numbers. Anything that is inimical to our values, anything that doesn’t meet the quality, the standards, the behaviour that will take us from being okay, adequate, good in part, to genuinely outstanding needs to be surfaced. And my pledge as a leader who is really fierce in this regard, is if you’re not fit to serve, we’ll find you out and I will kick you out.