Tayside Police mishandled a mother’s complaint about alleged harassment and victimisation of her son, the police complaints commissioner has ruled.
The mother claimed officers often turned up at their home, sometimes in the middle of the night, seeking to question him about local crimes “whether there was evidence or not” against him.
Officers believed her son “appeared to be heavily involved in petty crime” and her claims were unjustified.
A report by the police complaints commissioner John McNeill has now ordered the force to give her a proper explanation for dismissing her concerns.
The woman, who has not been identified, said over several years officers had come to her home to speak to her son. She told Mr McNeill that “the overall pattern of so many visits did not add up.”
On one occasion officers had woken her up at 2.30am and she felt she had been disbelieved when she told them her son was not there.
Mr McNeill, who looks into how all Scotland’s police forces deal with public complaints about them, said the woman’s allegations had been looked into by the force’s professional standards department.
In light of this inquiry, the force’s deputy chief constable sent the woman a letter stating, “I am of the opinion that every interview with him has been justified in light of evidence available to police. As such I do not believe that any unnecessary or unjustified interviews have been undertaken with him.”
Mr McNeill’s official judgment says that this letter was simply an assurance the force had acted properly but there had been no attempt to justify that finding.
“In the commissioner’s view, in order to provide a properly reasoned response to this complaint it was necessary for the deputy chief constable to provide some explanation for his conclusion that police intervention was justified.
“Accordingly, the commissioner does not consider that this complaint was handled in a reasonable manner.”