Rise in concern over police complaint handling

There has been a significant rise in the number of requests from the public for scrutiny of how police deal with complaints against officers.

The Police Complaints Commissioner's annual review showed there were 533 such individual requests for the year to March - a 70% rise since last year.

About a third of the complaints from the public about officers' handling of complaints involved Strathclyde Police.

Grampian was the only Scottish force to record a downturn in such requests.

Scotland's Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, Prof John McNeill, whose role is to scrutinise how police handle complaints and reform the process, found just over half of those received had been reasonably handled by police.

He said: "The increased number of complaints coming to my office demonstrates the continuing need for a dedicated independent police oversight body that the public can turn to when they believe the police have got it wrong in the way they have handled a complaint."