Guidance of a lone policemen encountering a lone women

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028978

I note you seek access to the following information:

Following the murder of Sarah Everard, I want to know what the Police laws/advice/guidelines are now for lone females approached by a lone male policeman. A lone woman has every right to be afraid following Wayne Couzens actions. What should a lone woman do if she is found in this situation and does not want to get into a police car alone with a lone male police officer for fear of harm?

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Q1 - What should a lone woman do if she is found in this situation and does not want to get into a police car alone with a lone male police officer for fear of harm?

The majority of police officers patrol in uniform and in close proximity to other colleagues, but there are limited occasions where a lone plain clothed officer may need to engage with the public.

Lone plain clothed officers, including those reacting to incidents whilst off-duty, will proactively provide verification of their identity and purpose to any lone woman they need to engage with using a video call to a uniformed supervisor in one of our police operations rooms. This is in addition to showing their warrant card.

The uniformed supervisor in the control room will conduct the necessary checks and provide reassurance that the officer is who they say they are and that they are acting appropriately. They will also ensure the encounter is properly recorded.

The video call will be made using the officer’s mobile device, but on the rare occasion they don’t have their device, such as when they are off duty, the officer will provide the woman with the telephone number to visually call the operations room directly. All local operations rooms have been equipped with a dedicated mobile device to make and receive these calls that utilise a range of popular video calling services including FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom and Google Duo.

They can also call 999 directly, to ask for verification of an officer’s identification and reassurance from the police control room if they prefer this route - or if video calling is not available for any reason.

The Met has consulted widely with key partners working to tackle violence against women and girls on this process in order to ensure it provides the reassurance that is needed.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, Frontline Policing, said: “It is very unusual for a lone plain-clothed officer to engage with a lone woman. It is simply not how we usually operate but there are some rare circumstances where this could happen and we want to give all the reassurance we can.

“We know we need to regain women’s trust and we fully accept that the onus is on us to verify we are who we say we are and that we are acting appropriately - that’s why we’ve introduced this system.

“We hope that being able to see and speak to a uniformed colleague in what will very visibly be a police operations room, and know that there is a proper police record of the encounter, will provide the reassurance that we understand is necessary.”

DUTY TO ADVISE AND ASSIST

The MPS has a duty to provide reasonable advice and assistance to applicants making a request, this is clearly set out in Section 16 of the Act. The College of Policing is a professional body for everyone working across policing. It is an operationally independent arm's-length body of the Home Office. It may be worth contacting the College of Policing for a national overview on this subject.