THE IOPC SERIES
‘I MIGHT NOT HAVE LOST MY MARRIAGE’
Starting this issue, we will bring you some of the untold stories of police officers who withstood the onslaught of time and systemic injustice to continue to do what they do best, protect and serve the public
Dedicated to serving the law, multiple officers have been wronged by those who are supposed to “influence changes in policing” – the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
How many of us can imagine a police officer saying, “After more than 12 years, which cost me a marriage amongst other things, I still do not know what I was accused of?” For the Met’s Sergeant Clayton Robinson, it’s a summary of the longest battle he has waged as a professional police officer. It all started in the summer of 2011.
Robinson was the on-duty custody sergeant at Charing Cross Police Station when two of his colleagues found a minor reported missing from a care home. The two officers brought him to the safety of the police station to wait for an appropriate adult from the care home to take custody. At the police station, it was reported that “the minor became difficult to manage and ripped up evidence bags and threw a first aid kid around the room” following which he was “physically restrained” and put under arrest by one of the officers. Subsequently, the minor alleged that he was assaulted on the floor of the police station (among other things) and filed a complaint with the Met which transferred it to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now Independent Office for Police Conduct – IOPC). “The complaint never made an allegation against me of misconduct. I just got dragged into it,” said Robinson. “I don’t know how the IOPC decided to change it to a case of gross misconduct against me. The IOPC didn’t collect all the evidence and conduct a full investigation. I can tell you this because they could never quantify what was alleged, that amounted to misconduct,” he added. Recalling one of the worst parts of the ordeal, Robinson said: “While I was attending one of the proceedings before
Sergeant Clayton
Robinson outside Charing Cross Police Station where he continues to serve and protect the public
the misconduct board, my then wife was undergoing a miscarriage. I couldn’t be there to support her. All I could do was speak to her on the phone while the IOPC representatives sat in the hearing sniggering at each other, the Barrister still failing to quantify the charge against me. They couldn’t do it. It was disgusting. “The greatest injustice to me was I shouldn’t have been there. It ruined my plans of moving closer to my family by preventing my transfer.
“If it had not been for the IOPC, I might not have lost my marriage.” Robinson says that without support
from the Federation it wouldn’t have been able to sail through the trauma. “The Fed’s support was fantastic. They were behind me the whole time, and appointed, followed up and paid for a team of legal experts through all these years.” On 7 February this year, the IOPC resolved Robinson’s case via mediation and the high court ordered the IOPC to settle a PFEW supported legal claim by paying monetary compensation and tendering a letter of apology. “I got a letter from the IOPC but it was not an apology, so I sent it back. They were still arrogant about it.”
17 | POLICE | OCTOBER 2022
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