Chamber and committees

During the long time that you have been involved in this, was there any mention at any time of the Scottish Police Authority?

Yes.

Was there a difference in police attitude after you took out a complaint compared with before? From what you are saying, I know that there was poor communication before that, which is why you ended up having to put in a complaint.

Did you feel that you were being failed by the system at that point?

Okay. Do you think that an entirely independent board should be investigating complaints?

Good morning, Stephanie. Thank you for coming in and being so brave today. I have a quick question. Before you put in a complaint, which you clearly had to do, would a single point of contact have been helpful to you after your son’s body was discovered?

You would get them all the time.

You should not have had to do that.

Do you think that they were hoping that you would just give up and say, “I am not waiting any longer”?

Good afternoon, Maggie, and thanks for doing this.

Following on Katy Clark’s questions about the PIRC, I am looking at the response that you got from it after your complaint was made. Our papers say that the PIRC summarised the complaint by saying that

“senior police officers, or an officer, gave instruction to detectives involved in a murder investigation to ignore your rape allegation against a named individual”

and that

“After you provided an additional statement”

in 2015,

“there has been inactivity and this male has not been questioned by detectives subsequent to you providing this statement.”

The PIRC said that its role was to examine the manner in which your complaints were handled by the police. It indicated that, although the review would consider how the police investigated the complaints, the PIRC would not be investigating your complaints or the matters giving rise to them, and it did not uphold your complaint about the police. That seems astonishing to me.