Section 21: Duty to provide information for other persons
159.This section extends the principle of greater openness to complainants (which is provided for in section 20) to people who have a legitimate interest in being kept informed about the handling of a complaint or recordable conduct matter, so that these people can also be kept informed without having to make a complaint. Subsections (6) and (7) place a duty on the Commission and the police to keep all interested persons properly informed of the same matters (listed in subsection (9)) that complainants must be kept properly informed of under section 20.
160.Subsections (1) and (2) define a person with an interest in being kept properly informed about the handling of a complaint or recordable conduct matter (an ‘interested person’) as someone who appears to the Commission or the police to be a relative of a person who has died allegedly as a result of police conduct, a relative of someone who has been seriously injured and rendered incapable of making a complaint himself or herself allegedly as a result of police conduct, or someone who has himself or herself been seriously injured allegedly as a result of police misconduct, and who has indicated that they consent to being kept informed. A ‘relative’ will be a person of a description prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State under subsection (12).
161.Subsection (3) allows the Commission and the police also to treat as interested persons other people whom they consider have an interest in the handling of a complaint or recordable conduct matter and who have consented to being kept informed.