A chronic staff shortage in the Police complaints department is continuing to create a considerable backlog of cases ? prompting delays in the administration of justice of up to several years in some instances.understands that the complaints department boasts only one full-time investigating officer, Insp. Eddie Davies.

This means that many of the roughly 50 complaints a year currently have to be dealt with by officers not officially attached to the department ? who of course, have other assignments.

Once the investigations are concluded, the files are sent to the Police Complaints Authority for a final decision ? an independent, voluntary body which claims to have been making significant strides in eroding the backlog over the last year.

PCA chairman Arlene Brock told yesterday that there were approximately 120 cases outstanding in January 2003, a figure which has now been drastically reduced to under 20. But according to Police sources, the problem lies not so much with the PCA but with the ponderous speed with which the investigations are completed by the complaints department at Prospect.understands there is a continual problem with a reluctance by some officers to complete assignments within an acceptable timeframe.

In the past the department has often been forced to threaten the removal of rights to paid leave or other similar sanctions in order to get the work done.

Hog Penny bar manager Mark Paiva filed a complaint in 2002, alleging he was beaten up by a group of Police officers following his arrest on Front Street for using ?obscene and abusive language?.

Three years later, after what he describes as ?endless? phone calls, consultations with lawyers and visits to the complaints department at Prospect, the matter has only just made it on to the agenda of the PCA which is scheduled to meet next week.

Under advice from his then lawyer Mark Pettingill in 2002, Mr. Paiva pleaded guilty to the charge in Magistrates? court and was granted a conditional discharge, although as he puts it, ?the Police got their justice in three days, I still have not got mine in three years?.

?It has been unbelievably frustrating,? he said. ?For the past three years I have just been running around in circles and I only received a letter from the PCA in 2004, two whole years after I first filed the complaint, which said they had now received by complaint and it was being investigated! ?Now I?m not here to bash the Police ? there are a lot of very good ones out there doing a very good job. But this situation is not just not acceptable. I was beaten by Police officers and I will not stop until they are held to account.?

Police media spokesman Dwayne Caines said he believed the complaints process would ?vindicate itself? and that cases were being heard and justice served. He would not, however, speak to the timeframe in which the process was being completed.