Having been denied a seat on Home Affairs initially, Deputy Rob Curgenven has now been removed from a political group set up to oversee a review of Guernsey’s police complaints system – but says he doesn’t understand why.
The group was set up at the end of last year by Home Affairs to work on the review of the island’s police complaints regime.
Deputy Curgenven was selected to join the group, alongside deputies Gavin St Pier, Haley Camp, Tina Bury, Jayne Ozanne, and Home Affairs President Deputy Marc Leadbeater.
Deputy Leadbeater said yesterday that the decision to remove Deputy Curgenven was unanimous, after he was perceived to have broken the group’s terms that all of its members had agreed to.
Deputy Leadbeater said in particular, the rules the group was asked to adhere to around confidentiality are the same as ones followed by the Committee for Home Affairs.
“I am deeply disappointed that we find ourselves in this situation, and that we have had to make this decision,” he said.
“I brought this group together specifically to involve a wide range of views, and to ensure we could bring different voices to the table for the review, however as part of that it was critical that we all agreed to terms of engagement to maintain the review’s integrity.
“On that basis, we agreed we would all refrain from commenting in the public domain on live or individual cases and maintain the same rules the Committee follows around confidentiality.
“At the first meeting, which Deputy Curgenven did not attend, we all agreed to those terms and started positively on this important piece of work. Deputy Curgenven later agreed to follow the same terms as the rest of us, but has since broken them by commenting about individual police matters, including live criminal investigations.
“This has been, and always will be, about ensuring the review is an effective piece of work. It isn’t about personalities, but this project could have a serious impact on our justice system and so it is very important it is carried out professionally and with integrity, without interference and entirely inappropriate behaviour undermining it.”
Having previously been in conflict with the past-Chief Officer of Bailiwick Law Enforcement, Deputy Curgenven now says he has a positive working relationship with the current Chief Officer and he continues to support people who have concerns around policing and the police complaints process in Guernsey.
He was elected to the States in June, and had sought election to Home Affairs but was unsuccessful. His later selection to sit on the police complaints review oversight group aligned with his wider work around improving policing in Guernsey.
It was anticipated that the group would present its recommendations on the police complaints process to the Committee for Home Affairs later in this term of the States.
Deputy Curgenven will now play no role in that, and he told Express yesterday that he does not know why.
He also accused Deputy Leadbeater of sharing false information via social media – something that the Home Affairs President has also accused Deputy Curgenven of doing on Facebook.
“For all intents and purposes the President of Home Affairs falsely claimed, on social media, that I had been removed from the group for: a) breaching the terms of engagement; b) commenting on a live criminal investigation; and/or c) commenting on a police complaint matter.
“I have requested the evidence supporting these allegations, but nothing has been forthcoming.
“In addition, media outlets were today told that I was removed for none of the reasons set out by Deputy Leadbeater on social media.”
Deputy Curgenven maintains that claims he broke the terms of the group are “false”.
More to follow…