england-and-wales police customer-service
Does any legal reason prevent customer service departments from addressing situations which have given rise to police involvement?
<p>In my experience when attempting to address unsatisfactory treatment from companies and organisations I have often been told that they cannot say anything about the issue due to police having been called about the incident.</p>
<p>Is there anything legal behind this, or is it just a cheap cargo culting type of cop out (no pun intended) because of the uncomfortable fact that their organisation had screwed up?</p>

<h2>There’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/49/enacted" rel="nofollow noreferrer">some</a> truth in it</h2>
<p>When a matter, particularly a criminal matter, is before a court or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_judice" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sub judice</a>, public comment is forbidden and may be contempt of court unless they are “a fair and accurate report of legal proceedings held in public, published contemporaneously and in good faith.”</p>
<p>Technically, it only applies to media reporting (probably including social media) and only while the proceedings are active. Proceedings become active when there is an arrest, oral charge, issue of a warrant, or a summons.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding, there is nothing preventing an organisation having a “no comment” policy on any matter once there is police involvement.</p>

<p>Most likely the person you asked cannot tell you because (a) police is involved and (b) they have orders from their boss not to give out any information if police is involved.</p>
<p>And since this works (you don’t get information which is what the business intended) it’s not a “cargo cutting type of cop out”. It’s a good strategy to avoid trouble for the person you asked and their company.</p>
