PRESSURE mounted on beleaguered Police Scotland chief constable Sir Stephen House yesterday, as each of Scotland’s political leaders criticised his leadership.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Jim Murphy, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie were all addressing the conference of the Scottish Police Federation, effectively the trade union for rank-and-file police officers. During a question-and-answer session, a delegate asked the leaders if “Team Police Scotland” should expect a new manager after a “series of disappointing results”.
Rennie said his party no longer had confidence in House and said that he should change or resign: “If he doesn’t restore that confidence, if he doesn’t change his way, then he’s going to have to change his job.”
The First Minister offered House the most support, although that, too, was qualified: “I have confidence in the chief constable and I think the police should have confidence in the chief constable, and more importantly than that I think the public should.
“No chief constable is or ever can be allowed to be a law unto themselves.”
Both Murphy and Davidson were critical, but stopped short of calling for the chief constable’s resignation.
Davidson told the audience, mostly made up of serving constables, that she was not “calling for Sir Stephen’s head”.
The Tory leader did say that House “was given an incredibly difficult job and a very short timeframe to do it, and he had to make some tough decisions.
“However that doesn’t take away the incumbency upon him to take people with him on that journey ... and I worry, I genuinely worry, that some of the issues that have been raised in the transformation of Police Scotland have eroded the trust that officers have in the leadership and eroded the trust that the public has for Police Scotland.”
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