Metropolitan Police Authority - seeking Independent Custody Visitors

46/05
07 September 2005

A partnership pioneered by the Metropolitan Police Authority is on course to achieve the biggest reform programme in the 20 year history of the London Independent Custody Visiting Scheme.

Independent Custody Visitors (ICVs) are ordinary members of the local community doing an extra ordinary job. They are appointed on a voluntary basis to check on the welfare of people detained in police stations.

The ICV Programme Board, a partnership between the Metropolitan Police Authority, the volunteer Independent Custody Visitors and the Metropolitan Police Custody Directorate, is seeking to improve the quality of the service provided and recruit more essential volunteers.

Aneeta Prem, MPA lead member for Custody Visiting, said:

“ICV Visitors carry out an essential public service, ensuring that individuals held in police custody are provided with the essential needs to which they are entitled. We must remember that people held in custody will not always be proven to have committed criminal acts, so the role of the ICV provides reassurance to the broader community that detainees are treated with fairness and respect.”

Talking about the need to recruit new Visitors, Aneeta continued:

”We need at least 150 additional volunteers from all parts of the capital to join existing Visitors in this unique, varied and challenging service to the community. Custody Visiting will offer you a challenge, but also the satisfaction of playing a vital role at the heart of the criminal justice system.

“Age, gender, ethnic origin and faith do not matter - all we ask is that you should be impartial, open minded, unbiased and calm under pressure. If you feel this is a challenge you can rise to, please get in touch and find out more.”

Notes to editors

1. Independent Custody Visiting (formerly known as “lay visiting”) began after Lord Scarman’s report into the Brixton disorders in 1981 recommended a system of independent, unannounced inspection of procedures and detention in police stations by local community members. The first schemes were set up in Lambeth and six provincial police authority areas in 1983, with more schemes being set up in London in 1985.

2. The Police Reform Act 2002 placed a statutory obligation on all police authorities to have in place an effective Independent Custody Visiting scheme.

3. The London scheme currently has about 450 volunteer Visitors.

4. To find out more please contact the Metropolitan Police Authority

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback