Watching the Detectives.....................

Friday 27 May 2011

Police watchdog Amerdeep Somal: 'I read her diaries. It was humbling'



Police watchdog Amerdeep Somal found 'systematic failures' in officers' handling of the abuse suffered by Fiona Pilkington and her family. She talks about the tragic case

Police watchdog Amerdeep Somal
Police watchdog Amerdeep Somal.

A little more than a week ago, Amerdeep Somal was wearing a glittering sari in a ceremony to pick up her award as this year's Asian Woman of Achievement. Today, she is more soberly dressed, and dealing with the press attention for the publication of her report into the death of Fiona Pilkington, the mother who took her own life and that of her 18-year-old daughter.

Cautious and circumspect – she politely refuses to answer anything she considers too personal – Somal admits to shock at some of the investigations she has worked on at the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), where she usually leads probes into the police handling of domestic violence. She says that the investigation into Pilkington's death, and her earlier suffering, affected her more than any case since she became a commissioner in 2004.


Pilkington, a 38-year-old mother from Leicestershire, had endured a decade of harassment when, in 2007, she drove herself, and her daughter Francecca Hardwick, to a layby and set their car alight. In the previous 10 years, along with her mother and neighbours, she had contacted the police more than 30 times about youths who had targeted the family over Francecca and her brother's disabilities. The report, which investigated the police's contact with the family before the deaths, recommended four officers face misconduct hearings. Shockingly, Somal says, even when Anthony, then 13, was locked in a shed for hours and threatened with a knife by his tormentors, the incident was treated as criminal damage by police.


Somal says it was impossible not to be distressed by Pilkington's desperation. "She was a woman, around the same age as me, with two children like me, but she had so much to deal with. I have read her diaries and that is a very humbling experience . . . her daughter had severe learning difficulties, her son also had disabilities, she had yobs outside her house smashing bottles – it's an awful experience for anyone to go through for a couple of nights, let alone 10 years. To look into her world, just briefly, and to experience the torment, the hurt, the pain . . ." she breaks off. "I think she did the best she could. I can't imagine anyone doing any better."
Yet, asked why the IPCC had not called for any dismissals, Somal offers a robust response. "It's my role to look at these cases dispassionately," she says. "The individual failures did not merit the [officers] losing their jobs. Instead there were collective, systematic failures, which compounded them.


"There has been criticism in the past of the IPCC being a toothless tiger, but there have been many cases when we have determined failings are so serious that officers should be at risk of losing their jobs."
In 2006, she was responsible for the IPCC's first referral for a domestic violence case – the murder of Tania Moore. The showjumper was killed after she broke off her engagement to Mark Dyche. Dyche had threatened to gouge out the 26-year-old's eyes and break her legs. Nine months before she was killed, he paid someone to beat her up and rob her. Despite Moore contacting the police six times, they failed to protect her. Finally Dyche rammed her car and shot Moore at point-blank range. Somal was vehement in her judgment, slamming the Derbyshire police's response as "abysmal".


Equally harrowing investigations have followed, such as the case of Louise Webster, killed by her partner in front of her 18-year-old son – whose 999 call was ignored by two officers in the area.


Yet despite these cases Somal says she does not think domestic violence cases are mishandled by the police on a day-to-day basis. "Public attitudes to domestic violence have changed considerably over the years and one of the reasons for that is that the police are tackling it more effectively. Among the small number of cases we publish, there are very many stories of very successful prosecutions and convictions."


Despite recent cases, such as Delroy Grant, who sexually attacked at least 203 elderly people, and John Worboys, a cab driver who drugged, raped and sexually assaulted at least 85 victims before being arrested, she refuses to blame the police for the low number of rape convictions in the UK. "The police response has improved . . . and there is nothing to suggest they are complacent. Rape convictions are improving and we have to support them in that."


The judges who made the 44-year-old Somal Asian Woman of Achievement praised her zeal for social justice and her courage in "standing up for the rights of the people she supports, regardless of the consequences". She is delighted, she says, because "I am very proud to be of Indian origin. My parents were first-generation migrants – they weren't affluent and they weren't educated. I would never have achieved anything if it wasn't for their sheer graft, and the opportunities the UK has given me."


Brought up in Coventry, she attended a "tough comprehensive school in the 80s, when being called a Paki was part of the norm". From the age of 11 she was determined to become a lawyer, despite the fact few children from her school went to university. And she was among the first women from her family to do so. "I used to rush home from school to watch [TV series] Crown Court and I wanted the wig and gown. But when I went to my school's career adviser, she laughed and said, 'Don't you mean a legal secretary?' I got a pat on my head – but I proved her wrong." But her mother encouraged her to study. "So I wasn't the typical Asian girl who was taught to make round chapatis in the kitchen – in fact, I can't make round chapatis to this day."


After reading law at university she went into private practice and then the Crown Prosecution Service.


When she was 26 she married "out of faith and out of caste". Her Sikh family were horrified, and it was a pivotal moment, she says, in her commitment to doing what was right, in spite of cultural norms. "I think many Asian kids reading this article will identify with that, and understand it was very difficult – especially at the time. I wasn't young, but I don't think I was the strong person I am today."


Now she credits her background for the focus of her work. "It was about ensuring that women have an equal place to men in society. You have to work harder for that in particular societies, and by that I mean in Asian societies. It has been our tradition that our sons are going to grow up and look after us in our old age, whereas when our daughters grow up, [they] marry well, be happy and bring honour to us."


It was a haunting childhood memory that cemented her commitment to working in domestic violence. "There was a women I met who took her own life – I was so shocked. There was a history of domestic violence and she left three young daughters behind – the oldest was my age, and I was 10."


Although she denies facing discrimination in her high-profile role – and considers the idea the police is "institutionally racist" to be out of date – it has not been without personal difficulties.


Last year her relationship with another commissioner, Nick Long, was the subject of a Sunday newspaper article. Her ex-husband and Long's former partner of 39 years were interviewed among claims Long was spending taxpayers' money on visiting her in Loughborough, which the IPCC denied. The experience did nothing to put her off the job – and certainly not while she is still enjoying the surprise of her award. "When I got up to get the award," she says, "I felt like saying: 'These things don't happen to girls from Cov.'"

Friday 27 May 2011

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