The Police Ombudsman's Office received more than 3200 complaints about the conduct of police officers between April 2012 and March 2013.
The Police Ombudsman's Office received more than 3,200 complaints about the conduct of police officers between April 2012 and March 2013.
These figures are contained in Office's latest Annual Report, which has just been published.
The Report reveals that the largest category of complaints received during the year alleged that police officers had failed in their duty.
The second most frequent allegation was that the behaviour of a police officer had been 'oppressive' – which typically includes complaints about assault or harassment.
In addition to complaints from members of the public, during the year the Office had 42 matters referred to it by the PSNI for independent investigation.
The Office made more than 300 recommendations to the Chief Constable that action should be taken against police officers.
46 recommendations made for improvements to policing.
In addition, it made 46 recommendations for improvements to police policy and procedures:
The Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, is just about to finish his first year in post. He said it has been a year of development for the Office:
"We made considerable progress in developing how we undertake our investigation of ‘historical’ cases and these have been validated by the Criminal Justice inspectorate. We also changed the nature of the relationship we had with the Department of Justice and made considerable changes to the management structure of the Office." he said.
The Office's new Chief Executive, Adrian McAllister, who joined the organisation in January this year, said he has been impressed by the its work and the dedication of its staff:
"We have some very solid foundations upon which to build over the next few years. Our focus will be to continue to deal with complaints in a fair way and to provide investigations which are of a very high quality." he said.