Home Affairs removes Deputy Curgenven from police complaints review group
- Deputy Rob Curgenven has been removed from the political group reviewing the police complaints regime.
- Home Affairs reached the decision unanimously.
- The group was established to gather diverse perspectives on police complaints, although it has no formal powers.
- Curgenven breached agreed confidentiality terms by commenting on live police matters, the committee says. He denies this.
Home Affairs has announced the removal of Deputy Rob Curgenven from its political group formed to review the police complaints regime.
The decision was reached unanimously by the committee members after comments in made on social media.
President Deputy Marc Leadbeater said: “I brought this group together specifically to involve a wide range of views, and to ensure we could bring different voices to the table for the review, however as part of that it was critical that we all agreed to terms of engagement to maintain the review’s integrity.
“On that basis, we agreed we would all refrain from commenting in the public domain on live or individual cases and maintain the same rules the Committee follows around confidentiality.
“At the first meeting, which Deputy Curgenven did not attend, we all agreed to those terms and started positively on this important piece of work. Deputy Curgenven later agreed to follow the same terms as the rest of us, but has since broken them by commenting about individual police matters, including live criminal investigations.”
Deputy Curgenven said that this was false.
“The real reason for my removal, the committee admits, is because it doesn’t like my social media posts,” he posted on Facebook.
“Or, alternatively, will Home Affairs change their reasoning for now a third time and offer up a different excuse?”
He has been a long term critic of the police complains procedure and quickly used his political position to ask formal questions of Home Affairs after being elected.
At the time, the committee was unhappy with how they were framed: "The Committee considers that the questions as posed do not provide a holistic view of the complaints regime," it said in its response.
"The Assembly and the public should be assured that the complaints
process is not in crisis and, with appropriate context, the questions and responses demonstrate that the complaints process is working, albeit it is complex and in need of review."
Other members of the review group are Deputies Tina Bury, Haley Camp, Jayne Ozanne and Gavin St Pier.
Deputy St Pier is currently the subject of a police investigation into allegations of harassment, which he has denied.
Deputy Jayne Ozanne, a member of the review group, remarked on the necessity of neutrality and independence within the team. She stated, "I am sorry to say that Deputy Curgenven has broken this code and it is only right and proper that he has been removed."
Deputy Haley Camp also reinforced the need for the group's neutrality, stating, "Maintaining the neutrality of the Oversight Group is vital to ensuring objective and independent results."
She remains confident in the group's capability to continue effectively moving forward.
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