Is it or is it not a failure of duty if a police officer (uk)?
Two answers to the same question. Is it an official dereliction of duty and therefore punishable? No. The reason it isn’t is because an officer has discretion as to whether to report an offence or not. There is no law that says everyone must be prosecuted. For instance, one officer may give a motorist a ticket for not wearing a seat belt whereas another may give a verbal warning. There is no discipline offence for police if they do not book someone. To quote an article on police discretion: POLICE DISCRETION There’s a difference between the ministration and administration of justice. Nobody (except mechanical jurisprudence theorists) wants a ministerial agency of justice, one that would ritually and religiously follow every rule and regulation down to the letter in a mechanistic, repetitive, assembly-line manner. Instead, we need responsible administers — officials who show “good judgement” and exercise discretion by assessing the context of each and every situation. Now for the secon
