The Learning the Lessons Committee is a multi-agency committee established to disseminate and promote learning across the police service. Its members are: ACPO, APA, Home Office, IPCC, HMIC and the NPIA. The Committee produces bulletins with articles containing lessons from investigations. One such article is published below:

Procedures not followed during prison production

A man in prison agreed to admit further offences so that these could be taken into consideration at his trial. The police decided he would need to be produced from prison (i.e. transferred to police custody) for part of the day for this purpose. This prompted the man to arrange with his girlfriend to meet on the day and, when she enquired at the police station, one of the officers involved put the operation at risk by telling her when the man was due to be produced.

Officers agreed a production order and contract with the prison service. This did not permit officers to take him anywhere other than a designated and accredited custody unit. However, the officers, who had had no training in prison productions, not only planned to interview the man (which could just as well have been done at the prison) but take him on a drive around the area so that he could point out the location of offences. They also took him to a non-accredited police station for the interview.

The officers had prepared a list of offences which they thought the man had committed. It was not uncommon for officers to prepare lists of offences to be used either as a reference or to be put to a suspect in interview. Though it was not clear whether the man was shown the list of offences in the interview in this case, doing so could act as a prompt to offenders or lead to information being inadvertently disclosed by officers. It was also Force practice for these lists to be used to mark offences as detected on the Force crime recording system without checking they had in fact been taken into consideration at court.

The officers took the man on a drive around the area during which he pointed out the locations of several offences. The man was then allowed to meet with his girlfriend who joined them in the police car and for lunch at a fast food restaurant. The officer's record of what took place during the drive, which should have recorded events as they were happening, was incomplete and inaccurate. In particular, it referred to the man speaking to his girlfriend but omitted that she joined them in the car and that both the man and his girlfriend used one of the officer's mobile phone several times.

Inmates at the prison claimed that the man returned with a package of drugs and a mobile phone supplied by his girlfriend, though a strip search of the man on his return found nothing.

Key messages are to ensure officers and staff have up-to-date information on designated and accredited custody suites; policy relating to prison productions to include reference to the importance of adhering to the terms of the production order and prison service contract; the need for a policy

detailing the proper processes and acceptable standards for identifying offences to be 'taken into consideration'; the need for a process for checking that crimes appearing on a signed schedule of offences have been taken into consideration at court prior to being marked as detected on the crime

recording system.