Thames Valley Police was one of the slowest forces at getting back to those making complaints against its officers, experimental figures show.

The police force took on average 22 days to respond to complaints – second only to West Midlands police, which took 24 days.

Watchdog the Independent Office of Police Complaints, which published the ‘experimental’ figures, said there were 2,960 complaint cases recorded by Thames Valley Police in 2020/21.

In total, 4,181 allegations were made about its officers, staff and services. The bulk of those complaints - 2,004 – concerning the ‘delivery of duties and service’.

There were three complaints of sexual misconduct, 28 about officers allegedly abusing their position or corruption, 44 concerned misuse of police vehicles and 187 complaints about perceived discriminatory behaviour.

The force finalised 2,192 complaint cases in the past year. Thames Valley received 311 applications for the outcome of complaint investigations to be reviewed. Of 105 review applications that were investigated, in only four cases the original outcome was found to be unreasonable and disproportionate.

In a statement, Thames Valley Police said it understood the impact of ‘recent events’ on trust in policing.

“Public confidence in our officers and staff is of the utmost importance to us and we take all complaints extremely seriously. We have robust processes in place to identify and investigate when standards have fallen below our expectations,” a spokeswoman said.

“Communities in the Thames Valley should feel reassured that we hold all our officers and staff to the highest possible standards at all times.”

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