POLICE RELATIONS WITH THE PRESS 1. We were pleased to observe that the Police have engaged a civilian press relations officer who is herself a professional journalist. It is important in the modem world, driven by the forces of mass communication, and the ability of the public to air their views publicly on talk shows and call in programmes, that any organisation which needs to interface with the public, develop programmes which are designed to ensure, not only that the organisation's policies, programmes and practices are such as they should be, but also that their attitude and approach to the public whom they serve is the correct one.

2. Not only that. It is also important to ensure that the public are made aware of the good work which the organisation is doing, that they are made to appreciate its value, and they are able to develop the comfortable feeling that the service to which they are entitled as members of the Public is being courteously and efficiently provided.

3. Most of us, despite the bombardment of advertising blandishments, develop a customer loyalty to a product or service upon the basis of our own personal experience with it. The Police provide an important public service. So important, that there is universal acceptance for an efficient police service even in a peaceful and pleasant democracy such as Bermuda. Else there is anarchy.

4. The modern public, alive to human rights considerations, and the rights of the individual vis a vis the state, is simply not prepared to accept a police service that fails to measure up to modern standards of civility, efficiency and professionalism.

5. A certain measure of self-promotion is desirable. The glossy magazines do have their place in the process of burnishing the image of the service. But the most effective requirement for the enhancement of the image is the varnish of personal experience.

6. Every individual who receives personal satisfaction arising out of an encounter with the Police, takes away a positive sensation which he or she describes to other persons thus creating a positive ripple effect. Equally, a poor personal experience creates a negative chain reaction. Hence the need to ensure that every person, even one suspected of the commission of a serious criminal offence, who comes into contact with Police, emerges from that contact with the satisfied feeling that he or she has been well treated. For that is the safest insurance of the preservation of a favourable public image.

7. Another important requirement is the maintenance of excellent personal relations with the press. Despite the creation of the apparatus established by the Police for dealing with the media, we are bound to report that all of the members of the media who spoke to us on the subject, reported negatively about their relations with the Police. They complained that they were made to feel like beggars when seeking information, were made to wait inordinately for such scraps as the authorities deigned to dole out, and, in some cases, deliberately `punished' by a refusal of information altogether, because of what some Police officers regarded as a negative story.

8. When put to the Police, these allegations were of course denied. But that these perceptions exist in the minds of the serving members of the media should, in our view, be a matter of legitimate concern to the Police hierarchy. Urgent efforts should therefore be made to mend fences with the media. This requires goodwill and a mutuality of respect on all sides. But it can be done. We would therefore recommend that the Commissioner of Police himself, together with his senior officers, meet with all of the media practitioners in Bermuda and seek to establish protocols for the relationships which must exist between them if both sides are to be of the maximum assistance to each other in playing their respective roles within the Bermudian democracy.

*** TRAINING 1. The Special Branch segment of the 1997 Annual Report spoke of a joint Fire, Police and Regiment Security exercise. But it is curiously silent on any exercises which were specifically referable to its work. But the Special Branch is not alone in this regard. No Section or Department of the service was able to report on the conduct of exercises specifically designed to simulate the conditions which its members were likely to encounter in practice and through which its officers could hone their skills so as to enable them the better to deal with a live situation when it actually occurred. The old adage `practice makes perfect' appears to have been completely lost upon the management of the Police Service and particularly of its training division.

2. This failure to conduct regular exercises, apart from impairing operational readiness, has had the effect of sapping the morale of Front Line operatives.

It bodes well for the future that a number of relatively junior officers were not only aware of this yawning lacuna, but able to offer practical solutions to the problem. They identified the Scenes of Crime, the Major Incident Room, the C.I.D. both centrally and regionally, and the National Intelligence Department, as being departments of critical importance where exercises should be conducted upon a regular, structured and ongoing basis. We respectfully agree with these officers and would so recommend especially because of the new emphasis being placed on intelligence led policing.

3. A particularly impressive group of junior C.I.D. officers, expressed alarm that the service, having had the good fortune to acquire equipment suitable for use in the event of public disorder, those who would be expected to use it upon being called out, could not benefit from the availability of such equipment, because it remained in storage in the pristine condition in which it arrived in Bermuda.

4. The officers concerned who, if the circumstances warranted, could find themselves thrust into the front line in the event of an emergency, had received no training whatever in the use of that equipment.

5. The most distressing aspect of this situation is the perplexing explanation of Acting Assistant Commissioner Jonathan D. Smith, that there was no need to conduct training in the use of that equipment, because of the peaceful conditions currently prevailing in the Islands. He was unable to discern, as his juniors had done, that it could take only a scintilla, such as an over reaction by an exuberant police officer, or a serious injury caused by drunken driving, coupled with the requisite degree of combustible circumstances, to ignite a public order conflagration: a situation which a police service such as that in Bermuda, should have well designed and rehearsed systems in place to guard against.

6. The service has boasted that a significant number of its officers have been trained overseas. This is undoubtedly a good policy which should continue. But for overseas training to achieve its maximum effect, the returning officer should find that the environment which he is re-entering, allows him to put into practice and to share with his colleagues, the learning which he has acquired abroad.

7. Many overseas trained officers have reported frustration because, upon their return from overseas training, they find that many systems, items of equipment, and practices in which they were trained abroad, simply do not exist in Bermuda. What is worse, they say, is that despite repeated representations, systems here remain the same, upgraded equipment remains a receding and ephemeral promise, and the enthusiasm with which they returned from overseas, is eventually subsumed into the all pervading atmosphere of business as usual. Meanwhile, when the next glossy Police publication is prepared for public consumption, it grandly reports on the number of officers who have been trained overseas and of the new skills which they have acquired -- skills which lie fallow in the breast of the recipient and are rarely if ever deployed to the advantage of the service and of the public.

8. Another disturbing underside of this training coin, reveals that there is a widespread perception in the minds of many capable officers that there is a system of recycling of trainees. The fortunate few are exposed to repeated overseas training programmes, whereas those who, for whatever reason, fail to catch the approving eye of those who select the trainees, could only look on longingly while the training plums are doled out to the favoured few. Those, more conscientious, continue to do their best, hoping that their day will come while others, more cynical, simply go through the motions in the callous belief that any effort beyond the minimum required output will bring no reward, and that the service should be relegated to becoming a mere conduit to a more lucrative and pleasant occupation not necessarily in Bermuda.

9. When asked to explain why certain officers were sent on several training courses abroad whilst others, equally deserving in sensitive departments such as the C.I.D. and the National Intelligence Department were not, a senior officer in the Training Department proffered the wholly implausible and unsatisfactory response that those officers who were not sent abroad for training did not apply to be sent. That explanation suggests that training is conducted as a reaction to requests for it, rather than upon the basis of a studied policy and a projection of future operational and other requirements of the service.

10. The existing parlous state of the training programmes and practices of the service cannot be justified. In its lucid and helpful report of August 1997 the Commission under the Chairmanship of the Rt. Hon. Mr. Telford Georges P.C.

wrote at page 43: 11. "The Commissioner of Police in his presentation before us correctly emphasised the importance of training. We endorse this: Officers were not fully aware of the contents of FSI and even more significantly did not appreciate the underlying reasons for their having been drawn up. When the reason for a rule is made clear obedience can become more readily habitual.

Despite busy schedules lectures can be arranged at which practitioners who normally appear for the defence and prosecutors as well can explain the importance of upholding the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt to secure a conviction if the fundamental values of the Bermudian society are to be preserved. The part an FSI plays in achieving this goal can thus be emphasised.'' 12. The above excerpt was a clear call to conduct appropriate training programmes not only in the specific area under review but throughout the service. That call, like so many others for the improvement of the service in other areas, has not been heeded. We can do no more than to repeat it here.

13. We would like to stress however, that if the current standards in the Police Service are to be lifted to the levels required of the modern world, to match the world leadership standards that Bermuda enjoys in the financial services industry, an intense programme of internal training in all departments of the service must begin immediately, and continued at regular intervals upon a sustained basis.

14. We would suggest that the relevant portions of the FSI and other instructions vital to the needs of operations on the ground, be prepared in the form of a pocket sized operational manual for each department. Vital operational procedures can be arranged in bullets and numerical form similar to the check lists used by pilots and in other fields where operational precision is critical. These can be carried by operational officers out into the field so that by quick references to his operational pocket manual, he or she can ensure that no essential practice or procedure is overlooked.

15. The Commission was fortunate to have laid before it the 1997 edition of The Aide Memoire for Senior Investigating Officers prepared and published by the National Crime Faculty of the Association of Chief Police Officers of the United Kingdom, Crime Committee working group on Crime Investigation.

16. The foreword to this admirably and highly useful booklet sets out its purpose so succinctly that we can do no better than to reproduce it in full: FOREWORD: This Aide Memoire is for Senior Investigating Officers and others who have responsibilities for investigating and managing serious and series crimes. It provides an overview of factors which must be considered as well as containing information on the latest advances in crime detection methods, especially in the fields of forensic and behavioural sciences.

It has been produced by The National Crime Faculty in conjunction with the ACPO Crime Committee and the Working Group on Crime Investigation.

The Aide Memoire's purpose is to provide a pocket guide with points of reference for all stages of a major crime investigation. Best practice and unusual features, based on the experiences of senior detectives, are included.

It is important that this document is viewed and used as a pocket guide and not regarded as an investigator's `catch all' compendium. It is divided into seven parts, each designed to help Senior Investigating Officers with the various stages of a major crime investigation.

Ultimately it is intended that this guide will be accessed through computers and updated regularly by The National Crime Faculty.

ACPO Crime Committee commends this Aide Memoire to you; with its origins set firmly in the world of experienced investigators, it will prove to be a valuable resource document.

W Taylor, Q.P.M.

Commissioner of the City of London Police Chairman of the ACPO Crime Committee January 1997'' 17. We are informed that the updated edition for the year 2000 is available.

We are reliably informed that the ACPO would readily make this Aide Memoire available to the Bermuda Police Service upon request.

It is recommended that the 2000 edition be acquired as a matter of urgency, that new editions be acquired each year, that it be adapted to the needs and laws of Bermuda, and that suitable counterparts be prepared for issue to detective ranks below the level of SIO. In particular, we would strongly recommend the acquisition of the ACPO companion volumes, and the companion Aide Memoire for use by Scenes of Crime Officers and the section dealing specifically with the functions of an officer who first arrives at a crime scene.

Combatants?: Commissioner of Police Jean-Jacques Lemay seen at a Press conference. All members of the media spoken to by the Commissioners of the Inquiry reported negatively about their relations with the Police. They complained that they were made to feel like beggars when seeking information, were made to wait inordinately for such scraps as the authorities deigned to dole out, and, in some cases, deliberately `punished' by a refusal of information altogether, because of what some Police officers regarded as a negative story.