Alison Pinnock v The Independent Office for Police Conduct

Facts

Ms Alison Pinnock, who represented herself, was arrested in Walsall in September 2015 by West Midlands Police at the request of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). The arrest followed a complaint of assault by a motor insurance investigator after she had refused to attend a voluntary interview. She was charged with battery and later acquitted. In interview she said that she had previously been harassed by police, including by two officers who had pulled her out of the London offices of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Her later complaint to the MPS was first treated as out of time. After an earlier judicial review, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) upheld her appeal against that decision on 20 September 2021, finding that her concerns raised in interview had not been properly explored, and directed an investigation. The MPS identified eleven heads of complaint. The third, as redrafted at her insistence, referred to harassment due to her arrest "and incident(s) that had occurred prior to the arrest". In May 2022 the MPS dismissed her complaints without addressing the NMC allegation. On 27 February 2025 the IOPC did not uphold her appeal, saying that the NMC matter had not formed part of her complaint. She sought judicial review, and permission was granted on three of her six grounds.