Student custody visitors training for England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Background and Context

History
Who's who
Human Rights Articles and References
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History

There have been several key events and milestones that have contributed to the development of independent custody visiting and these include:
• The Civil Disorders of 1981
• The Scarman Report of 1981
• The Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984
• The European Convention on Human Rights

Other influential reports include:
• The Police Complaints Authority Report: Deaths In Police Custody 1998
• The Lay Visiting To Police Stations Home Office Report 1998
• The MacPherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry of 1999
• The Home Office Circular 15/2001
• The Police Reform Bill 2002

Civil Disorders 1981

During the first half of 1981 several outbreaks of unrest occurred in major cities throughout the country in Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, the West Midlands and London. The most significant of these disorders took place in Brixton between the 10th and 12th of April when hundreds of young people attacked property and the police.

The cause of these disorders centred around people protesting about oppressive policing and in particular the alleged harassment of people, especially young black people, by the police – in short, these incidents were anti-police and voiced a lack of trust in the law and order authorities.

After days of unrest, these serious incidents led to the government ordering an urgent inquiry and appointing Lord Scarman to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the events.

The Scarman Report

The resulting investigation – the Scarman Report – included several recommendations about reforming the law, community relations and policing practices to help tackle the central problems which caused the civil disorders.

As part of these recommendations, Lord Scarman advocated a system for members of the public from local communities to inspect the way the police detained people in their custody.

Originally referred to as lay visiting, independent custody visiting is the system that has been developed to meet this recommendation.

Unlike other recommendations within the Scarman Report, the lay visiting process was not made law and was never a legal requirement. It was a process carried out by mutual consent - the police agreed to these visits, lay visitors agreed to make the visits and detainees agreed to be visited.

However following the issue of Home Office Circular 15/2001, the independent custody visiting process was strengthened and a recommendation to make the process statutory was included in the Police Reform Bill 2002 (clause 45). Placing independent custody visiting on a statutory basis would immediately raise the status of custody visiting and a supporting code of practice would provide for consistent standards across England and Wales.

The process is already statutory in Northern Ireland under article 73 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000.