Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, commenting on a Metropolitan Police Officer admitting misconduct in public office, said:

“This is a very serious matter. The actions of this officer risk casting a shadow over the excellent work police officers do day in, day out.

"Making up that he saw the incident in Downing Street is a clear injustice to Andrew Mitchell and an extremely serious offence - and this has rightly been strongly condemned by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
 
"For a police officer to make up evidence in any case is an extremely serious offence which jeopardises justice and undermines confidence in the important work police do. Police Officers uphold the law, and their evidence must be trusted in court.
 
“Democracy depends on the idea that everyone can rely on the police to treat them with honesty and fairness, without fear or favour - from Cabinet Ministers to teenagers in the street or victims of crime. So it is of great concern when those we trust fall below the standards the police and the public expect.

"Andrew Mitchell has had to wait far too long for the results of all these investigations. The remaining misconduct inquiries must be pursued swiftly.
 
"But wider reforms are still needed. As the Stevens Commission made clear, we need new reforms to keep raising standards in policing, to make sure there is swift action when policing goes wrong, to ensure that unethical or criminal behaviour by individual officers is caught and stopped - and to make sure it doesn’t taint the vital work the rest of the police do each day.”