It was a whitewash

John Moore Complaint

Mr Bynoe was responding to a series of cases highlighting public disquiet with the complaints system.

Among them is that of Manchester businessman John Moore, who complained to the PCA that he had been assaulted in 1998 by a plain-clothed British Transport policeman at Euston station.

After a two-year investigation his complaint was not upheld and he decided to sue the police in the civil courts.

Only then did he discover that a witness who supported his allegations had not been questioned by officers investigating his complaint.

'A natural fear'

Mr Moore said: "I expected [the investigation] to be fair. I expected them to take proper evidence, listen to it and sum it up properly.

"As it is, they took no evidence from independent witnesses. They summed it up on police's say so. It was a whitewash."

My Bynoe admitted that case "was a mistake".

But he added: "Members of this authority have to see about eight cases every day.

"They may miss things and they missed things in Mr Moore's case.

"We're the back-stop in the system and if the public sees in that case it didn't work they are going to fear it didn't work in other cases. It is a natural and reasonable fear."

Will the new complaints body be better?

Alerted to the oversights in Mr Moore's case by File on 4, Mr Bynoe has now written him a letter of apology.

He has also demanded an explanation from the deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police who carried out the investigation into Mr Moore's complaint on behalf of the PCA.

The government is now proposing to replace the PCA with a more independent body - the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Plans for the new system are contained in the Police Reform Bill which received a second reading in the House of Lords earlier this month.

But critics are already claiming the new body may share many of the problems of the outgoing PCA.

The civil rights organisation Liberty argues that in practice many complaints against police officers will still be investigated by the police themselves.

'Half-hearted'

Others have expressed concern the government has not yet made clear how much more money the new body will have to fund its investigations.

Mr Bynoe warned that the government could not afford to get it wrong again.

"In 1981 Lord Scarman presented to government a strategy which he felt would increase public confidence in complaints against the police, and in the creation of the PCA a half-hearted attempt was made to get near what Lord Scarman thought was necessary, " he said.

"The Police Reform Bill is a substantial step along that way, and I hope the government, in its resourcing, regulations and its staffing, is going to deliver.

"If it doesn't, I don't think the public will have much patience or give it a second opportunity."

File on 4 is broadcast on Tuesday at 8pm and repeated on Sunday at 5pm.