To: Justice Secretary Alex Norris
Justice for victims of corrupt police officers
Introduce a new law which would trigger an independent review whenever a police officer is imprisoned, helping uncover corruption and prevent innocent people from suffering injustice.
Why is this important?
Winston Trew was framed by a racist and corrupt police officer in 1972. It took nearly 50 years to clear his name. Thirteen people framed by the same officer spent a combined 623 years wrongfully convicted because his police work was never independently investigated — even after he was sent to prison.
Yet even today, there is no automatic process to review cases linked to police officers who are imprisoned.
That's why we’re calling on the Justice Secretary to introduce Trew’s Law: automatic, independent reviews of cases connected to imprisoned police officers.
Why it matters
Research by the University of York and APPEAL found that at least 20 police officers are imprisoned each year for offences including theft, burglary, fraud, misconduct in a public office and sexual offences. Examples include:
· Stealing evidence worth £4.4million during a criminal investigation.
· Stealing 4kg of cocaine from a police evidence store, conspiring to sell it, and unlawfully searching police computer systems for local drug dealers.
· Serious sexual offences against children and women.
In many cases, these offences were facilitated by the officers’ position of trust.
Officers like these let down the public and their fellow officers. It’s hard to believe that their past work isn’t automatically investigated.
There are likely many more victims just like Winston and their families who have suffered at the hands of corrupt and dishonest officers.
Given that most prosecutions rely on the honesty and integrity of police officers, we must have the most robust safeguards against those officers who abuse their position.
The imprisonment of a police officer should trigger an automatic, independent review of their work to root out corruption, dishonesty and deception and to identify potential miscarriages of justice and protect public confidence in the justice system.
Currently this isn’t the case - and Trew’s Law would fix that.
Endorsed by: APPEAL (Centre for Criminal Appeals), Cllr Jonathan Bartley, Winston Trew. Supported by the research of the York Law School and the Centre for Applied Human Rights (University of York).
Justice shouldn’t depend on luck, or on victims fighting for decades. We call on the Justice Secretary to enact Trew’s Law.
