HOME Office minister Chris Philp has denied that changes to toughen up the disciplinary process for police officers amount to the setting up of “kangaroo courts”.

He told GB News: “I don’t accept what the Police Federation has said about this at all. There will still be an independent panel assessing these cases, it will now be chaired by a senior police officer.

“Because I think it’s only right that if we’re asking chief constables and senior officers to lead an organisation they have more influence over who serves in that, but there will still be two independent members on that panel, one of whom will have to be legally qualified.

“I don’t accept even remotely the suggestion that these are kangaroo courts. They’re properly constituted. There’s due process, but it does mean officers who don’t deserve to serve in uniform will have nowhere to hide.”

In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “Of course, we should keep in mind that the vast majority of officers are brave and hard-working but there have been some appalling cases as you said in the last few years, where officers who frankly should not have been serving in uniform have not been removed quickly enough.

“These reforms are designed to fix that they will give chief constables more power to dismiss officers who should be removed, it’ll make removal for gross misconduct automatic, it will make sure that specified criminal offences will automatically lead to misconduct and it will streamline and speed up the process for removing officers either guilty of or accused of misconduct or indeed of poor performance, as well.

“Taken together, these reforms will mean that where there is an officer who does not deserve to serve in uniform, then there will be nowhere for them to hide. I think that will help, as you say, to re-build public confidence in policing.”

On plans to force criminals to attend court for sentencing, he said: “That is really important. These people should literally face justice in court and should not be allowed to hide in the cowardly way that some of these offenders have been doing.”