Tayside Police have been cleared over complaints from a woman whose son was taken from her.
She claimed there had been a delay between officers removing the boy and her being told about it, and that officers had inappropriately discussed her case.
The woman, who has not been identified, at first raised her concerns directly with the force. She was not satisfied with their response and asked John McNeill, the police complaints commissioner for Scotland, to get involved.
He learned social workers had invoked emergency powers to authorise the removal of the woman’s son, following the death of her older child.
Officers had been asked to take part but on the way to her home they spotted the boy at a shop and took him to a police station. The mother was then visited and told what had happened.
After the woman complained, a detective inspector sent to investigate said when he went to visit her she had become “irrational” and had shouted “a barrage of expletives and threatened to throw objects” if he did not leave immediately.
The woman did not respond to a follow-up letter inviting her to discuss her concerns.
Mr McNeill said: “Although police assisted in the operation to remove Child X, the decision to remove him was made by social workers rather than police.”
A delay of 15-20 minutes in telling the mother her son had been taken was not excessive and Mr McNeill said he had no evidence officers had acted inappropriately. He decided the force had dealt with the woman’s complaint in a reasonable manner, given she did not co-operate fully.
The woman had also claimed she had seen a detective constable and other officers “making snide comments and sniggering” when she attended a hearing at the sheriff court several months later.
She said: “I ignored them but I am fed up of uniform and CID officers harassing me whenever they see us.”
Mr McNeill said that during the force’s internal inquiry the detective constable insisted he had not been at court on the day in question and could not recall seeing the woman at court since.
Ruling the force had acted correctly, he said: “The applicant had ample opportunity to provide more detail about her complaint but chose not to do so.”