Opinion: Norfolk police must take action over Amnesiagate

Drip by drip and day by day we seem to learn more about the 'Amnesiagate' affair at Norfolk Constabulary.

In broad daylight on Saturday March 5 last year, a police car drove into the back of an Audi at 49mph on the A146 near Beccles. Although the 34-year-old female driver of the Audi stopped further up the road, the police BMW just drove on.

Behind the wheel of the police car was PC Karl Warren, and alongside him PC Ryan Hargrave. Nothing was reported until the next day; too late for the driver of the police car, PC Warren, to be breathalysed and - importantly - medically checked.

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The driver of the police car has not been charged with any offences because he told investigators he had no recollection of what happened, and said he suffered from transient global amnesia (TGA).

As a result, the Crown Prosecution Service decided he should not be prosecuted for the hit-and-run offence or careless driving. Instead, he has been put on administrative duties by Norfolk police.

Deep in the bunker of police HQ at Wymondham, chief constable Paul Sanford and police and crime commissioner Giles Orpen-Smellie seem content that nothing further can be done about the matter.

They accept the findings of an officer from Bedford, Cambridge and Hertfordshire police who reviewed all the documents and concluded there was not a realistic prospect of conviction because of the “complex medical defence”.

We also learn now that the CPS originally wanted to bring charges against PC Warren. But they were dropped when informed about further medical evidence from a London consultant, in addition to a medical report by an NHS specialist neurologist – an expert in TGA – that PC Warren was “unlikely to know what was happening at the time of the incident or have any recollection of it”.

Note the use of the qualification “unlikely”.

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According to Dr Michael Grey, an expert in rehabilitation neuroscience at the UEA’s School of Health Science, the episode usually lasts from eight to 24 hours.

But he adds that TGA is well known in the legal community: “But the challenge is that diagnostically it is hard to test for, especially if you are doing it 24 hours after the event”.

It appears that experts have differing views on the accuracy of a diagnosis of TGA, over 24 hours after the episode.

Yet the diagnosis was accepted as definitive; so differing views of experts in this field were not tested in the courts.

The optics of this affair are awful for the reputation of Norfolk Constabulary and all its officers. Neither the Chief Constable nor the PCC have been transparent in this matter, having ostensibly swept it under the carpet.

Now it is out in the open, they should put their heads above the parapet and listen to the flack that is flying over this astonishing episode of missed opportunities that led to the case being dropped by the CPS.

The right course is to refer Amnesiagate to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The organisation is independent of the police, government and interest groups.

It investigates the most serious and sensitive incidents and allegations involving the police in England and Wales. 

When the IOPC receives a police force referral, the assessment unit reviews the information it has been provided with. The IOPC decides whether the matter requires an investigation and the type of investigation.

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By law, forces must refer certain matters to the IOPC. These include that police officers or staff have committed misconduct – for example, any suggestion that a criminal offence has been committed.

The IOPC has the power to direct forces to record incidents and then 'call them in'. It can also consider incidents that have not been referred to it by police forces, and decide whether and how it will investigate them.

For the sake of the reputation and public confidence in Norfolk Constabulary, the IOPC should at least be asked whether it might consider looking at this affair. So far it has been police investigating police. That is not convincing.

It needs an independent body to assess Amnesiagate. Only then will public concern over the handling of the matter be allayed.

Peter Franzen OBE is a former editor of the EDP