HOW CANNABIS CASE LED TO CLAIMS OF THEFT AND VIOLENCE BY POLICE

The police station in Edmonton is a forbidding red-brick building
bristling with radio masts and surrounded by high walls.

It is an imposing presence, glaring down on a row of Turkish restaurants
and supermarkets on the other side of Fore Street in the outer reaches of
North London.

The station foyer, the only place accessible to the public, is little
bigger than a cupboard where locals report their losses, complaints and
woes to officers through a window.

The impression is more of a fortress than the friendly notion of
neighbourhood policing that British forces are desperate to foster. This
station is at the centre of one of the most sensitive corruption
investigations the Metropolitan Police has faced for decades.

Allegations of evidence fabrication and theft of suspects' property
developed into more serious claims that some individuals were subjected to
violence and ill treatment amounting to torture. One claimant made an
allegation of having been subjected to waterboarding.

The chain of events began last November when officers from Enfield carried
out a series of raids. Addresses in Enfield and Tottenham were searched
after a tip-off that people living there were involved in cannabis
dealing.

Four men and a woman were arrested and charged with importation of a Class
C drug.

On December 4 the defendants appeared before Enfield Magistrates' Court
and the case was committed for a Crown Court trial.

The drug case appears to have been the catalyst for an inquiry into
activities at Edmonton station by the Scotland Yard Directorate of
Professional Standards, the Met's anti-corruption unit. This team is known
in police slang as the Rubber Heelers - so named "because you can't hear
them coming".

In this inquiry they appear to have lived up to their reputation. It is
understood that video probes and covert listening devices were planted
inside the police station to gather evidence.

Initially the directorate's inquiry focused on claims of theft of property
from people who had been arrested in Enfield. More specifically that
referred to allegations that valuable items - including flat-screen
televisions, computers and iPods - had disappeared from police stores.

In February four officers were suspended and a further seven placed on
restricted duties. The action was said to be in connection with
allegations of "mishandling of property" and coincided with the conviction
and imprisonment of a female civilian worker at the station who was caught
trying to burn records.

But the investigation had already taken a more dramatic turn and was
examining disturbing claims that some officers had ill-treated suspects.

Information gleaned during the police's internal inquiry had chimed with
claims made by some of the defendants in the cannabis inquiry.

At least one of those people had made an allegation of "waterboarding" at
the time of the raid and arrests in November.

Senior officers have been horrified by the allegations. One source said:
"This is as bad as it gets - these allegations are being treated with the
utmost seriousness."

Another source claimed that although serious, the allegations were "more
Life on Mars than Guantanamo Bay".

The source said that the allegations had yet to be proved: "It might not
be about tying someone to a board, more like shoving their heads in a bowl
of water."

The pending trial of the suspects in the drug case, however, threatened to
derail the anti-corruption inquiries.

It was set for March 12 at Wood Green Crown Court, and opened with an
extraordinary move from counsel for the Crown Prosecution Service. The
prosecutor applied for a public interest immunity certificate, a legal
device by which a hearing can be held in secrecy. The judge granted the
application and the Crown then explained to the closed court why it was
dropping the cannabis allegations.

A CPS spokesman explained: "If we had continued [with the ]trial] we would
have compromised a wideranging criminal investigation into the activities
of a number of police officers."

With the trial abandoned, on April 3 the Met's Directorate of Professional
Standards briefed the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to
ensure that the further progress of the inquiry could be assessed
externally. The IPCC decided to carry out a fully independent inquiry led
by its own team of investigators.

Last night the IPCC said that its inquiry was focusing on six officers. A
spokesman said: "A team of investigators, led by a senior IPCC
investigator, continue to investigate this case.

"So far, IPCC investigators have conducted house-to-house inquiries,
appealed for witnesses and taken statements. This is an ongoing criminal
investigation and as such all six officers will be criminally interviewed
under caution."

To date, there have been no arrests and no charges.