⟡ Acknowledged, Then Abandoned: The Art of the Regulatory Pass-Back ⟡
Filed: 21 May 2025
Reference: SWANK/IOPC/2025-007090
📎 Download PDF — 2025-05-21_SWANK_IOPC_Acknowledgement_MetPoliceComplaint_Ref2025-007090_NoActionImplied.pdf
I. The IOPC Responded. But Only Just.
This letter marks the formal receipt of complaint 2025/007090, filed against the Metropolitan Police Service — and promptly returned, jurisdictionally speaking, back to them.
What it includes:
A reference number
A procedural summary
A polite tone of removed concern
What it does not include:
Safeguarding of the complainant
Interim protection
Any sign that escalation means consequence
It is acknowledgement without intervention.
Format over follow-through.
II. “The Police Will Now Handle Your Complaint About the Police”
This letter confirms:
That the Met Police will “review” their own conduct
That the IOPC has passed along your evidence
That nothing — not trauma, not discrimination, not medical risk — triggered automatic oversight
It is the regulatory equivalent of a smile and a shrug.
What begins in breach ends in a bureaucratic loop.
III. Why SWANK Filed It
Because acknowledgement without action is its own form of administrative violence.
Because referencing a case number means nothing if the process is designed to collapse.
Because the very agencies meant to shield you from retaliation refer you straight back to the source of harm.
Let the record show:
The complaint was filed
The reply was received
The risk was unchanged
And SWANK — filed the reply, not the reassurance
IV. SWANK’s Position
We do not confuse correspondence with justice.
We do not consider case numbers a substitute for protection.
We do not permit regulators to feign neutrality when neutrality enables abuse.
Let the record show:
The complaint was real.
The reference was issued.
The responsibility was deflected.
And SWANK — archived the abdication.
This is not oversight.
It is procedural disappearance, styled as concern.