Cleared: Police watchdog say ‘no indication’ acting chief constable committed any electoral offence
Ivan Balhatchet’s registration at two adddresses was an administrative error of the local authority, the Independent office for Police Conduct has found
By Sarah Ward
Northamptonshire’s chief constable has been cleared in an investigation into possible electoral fraud.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) says there is no evidence Ivan Balhatchet, who has been temporarily holding the chief constable role since former chief Nick Adderley was suspended last October, had willingly committed electoral fraud by registering himself at two addresses.
Local resident Simon Tilley had made the complaint against the senior officer earlier this year to the Northants Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s office, who then passed it up to the IOPC who decided to investigate.
In a statement issued yesterday an IOPC spokesperson said:
“We have concluded our investigation of an allegation relating to electoral registration irregularities against a senior Northamptonshire Police officer. We have advised the Office of Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC), which referred the matter to us in early September, that we have found no indication the senior officer may have committed any criminal offence or behaved in a manner to justify bringing any disciplinary proceedings. No misconduct notice was served on the officer during the investigation.
“We took proportionate steps to investigate the allegation that the senior officer was registered to vote at more than one property in Northamptonshire, and the circumstances of any dual registration. The referral included material appearing to be a photograph taken of a redacted electoral roll list showing the senior officer’s name against two addresses on the same street in Northampton. We shared the evidence with the relevant local authority to aid efforts to provenance and authenticate the material. A review of archived registers by the local authority identified 2002/03 as the one year where the senior officer’s name was registered twice at different addresses. We established that the addresses are within 100 metres of each other. The OPFCC informed us with the referral that the senior officer denied ever living at one of the properties.
“In its response to the IOPC, the local authority advised that duplications can and have previously occurred on the Register of Electors. The authority stated that it could confidently conclude the second registration identified in the 2002/2003 Register of Electors was owing to an administrative error which they believed to be their own. The authority added that the addresses were in close proximity and that registrations were hand inputted at that time. They advised that any duplications on that street would have been merged or deleted since. They explained that, in line with data protection law, records of individual declarations of registrations are not kept after a 13-month period, and no ballot papers or postal votes are kept beyond a period of one year and one day after the last election. Records showed that the senior officer was not registered to either property in the most recent Register for 2023/24. Notwithstanding any administrative issue, while voting more than once in a UK Parliament election is illegal, the Electoral Commission states that it is not a criminal offence to be registered to vote at two addresses.
“In summary, our investigation has found no evidence that the senior officer had been deliberately registered at more than one address for the purposes of attempting electoral fraud. Our investigation into the matter, which was carried out in line with applicable law and policy, has now closed.”
The police, fire and crime commissioner’s office said:
“Last month, we referred allegations that a member of the public had made against Chief Constable Ivan Balhatchet to the IOPC, as we are obliged to do. The allegations concerned the electoral register.
“The IOPC has now informed us that they have looked at these allegations and found no indication of misconduct. We are very grateful to the IOPC for the independent investigation and have considered its report. The matter is now closed and the Commissioner will not be taking any further action.”
This week the commissioner’s office said the recruitment for a new chief constable has not yet started. Former chief constable Nick Adderley was sacked from office in June after a misconduct hearing heard he had told a series of lies about his military history and education achievements. The Crown Prosecution Service is currently assessing whether he will be charged with any crimes.
He’s fortunate that the error is acknowledged and someone else is acknowledged to be at blame.
In my own experience that is not always the behaviour and errors are covered up that are due to errors on the part of council officers and police officers and victims of this incompetence are gaslighted and victim blamed.
I’m glad he has the right outcome in this instance and hope that he will gain insight into how it feels to be portrayed as having done something wrong because of recording errors and will have the integrity to look more closely at his own officers behaviours.
As a regular political campaigner I often notice errors like streets arrayed wrongly as in streets arrayed in straight numerical order are shown as odds and evens. Also name duplications.
The council really need to ensure that this work is done really to a high standard to avoid unnecessary investigations such as this turned out to be.