Six Met officers have received compensation and formal letters of apology after lengthy misconduct investigations.

The investigations concerned three unrelated incidents in London which took place on separate dates in 2011.

The investigations took between four and seven years and were all concluded in favour of the officers.

The Federation’s successful legal challenge, which was settled in February of this year, has resulted in compensation and apology letters being issued to each of the officers.

National Vice Chair Ché Donald warned PFEW would continue to hold the IOPC to account for any further ‘unfair and prolonged persecution’ of police officers.

He said: “For ever and a day, the IOPC has been completely unaccountable for the way in which they run protracted investigations, displayed bias in the process, and behaved in an underhanded manner which has negatively impacted on the lives of police officers.

“The settlement calls the IOPC to account and makes it crystal clear PFEW will not tolerate our members being treated this way. It also sets an important precedent for colleagues.

“This is a clear shot across the boughs of the IOPC that protracted investigation and the days of treating officers like second class citizens are over, along with the mind-set associated with this.

“The simple fact is none of these officers needed to be put through a process which lasted a number of years, and this massively impacted on their mental and physical wellbeing, while leaving them in limbo. Although financial compensation is good, it won’t change the fact they had to go through hell.

“Although the IOPC is moving in the right direction now, there still remains deep seated cultural biases in some pockets which is directed towards police officers. Until these are resolved, PFEW will continue to fight for fairness via our ‘Time Limits’ campaign, which calls for a cap on how long an allegation or complaint against a police officer can be investigated.”

An IOPC spokesperson said: “Following a mediation exercise earlier this month, we apologised to and compensated six police officers on behalf of our predecessor, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). 

“We apologised to the officers, who had all been subject to IPCC investigations, for the length of time they’d found themselves under investigation. We accepted that the investigations and the processes which followed took far too long to bring to a conclusion and that some of the reasons for those delays rested with the IPCC.  

“Since the IOPC came into being in 2018, we have made significant improvements to the timeliness of our investigations. We now complete 90% of our core investigations within a year and over a third within six months.”