Complaints cases rising

The number of people who said police were not handling their complaint properly has increased, figures out today showed.

Applications from the public asking for their complaint to be reviewed by Professor John McNeill, the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, rose by 19 per cent to 133 for the year ending 31 March.

During the same period Prof McNeill wrote 69 reports involving more than 300 complaints about the behaviour of police and quality of service received by members of the public. He found that in two out of three cases, the complaints had been handled "reasonably" by police.