# UK Police Conduct (IOPC) News Watchdog (`hllerdgn80/uk-police-conduct-iopc-watchdog`) Actor

Watch the Independent Office for Police Conduct's public news list for new investigation outcomes, prosecutions and misconduct findings naming police forces across England & Wales — by title keyword or published-date range. Official free list, no login required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/hllerdgn80/uk-police-conduct-iopc-watchdog.md
- **Developed by:** [Halil Erdogan](https://apify.com/hllerdgn80) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## UK Police Conduct (IOPC) News Watchdog

Watches the **Independent Office for Police Conduct's** (IOPC) public news list
(policeconduct.gov.uk/news) — the official record of investigation outcomes,
prosecutions, misconduct-hearing findings and "we directed" case updates naming
police forces across England & Wales. Over 1,200 items published newest first.

No login, no API key, no scraping tricks — this actor reads the same public HTML pages
a visitor's browser would, respecting `robots.txt` (which allows `/news`; only `/admin`,
`/search` and similar administrative paths are disallowed).

### What you get

One row per news item matching your filters:

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `title` | The news item's headline |
| `published_date` | ISO date (`YYYY-MM-DD`) the item was published |
| `published_date_raw` | The date as published, e.g. "21 Sep 2026" |
| `news_type` | e.g. "News" |
| `tags` | Comma-joined tag list — usually the police force(s) named plus a category such as "Corruption and abuse of power" |
| `body` | The full item text (truncated to ~4,000 characters) |
| `url` | Link to the item on policeconduct.gov.uk |
| `watch_label` | Your own tag, copied onto every row |
| `status` | `ok`, `invalid_input`, `http_error`, `network_error` or `parse_error` |

### Input

- **Title keyword contains** — free text matched against the item title (e.g. `Metropolitan Police`, `dismissed`, `sexual assault`). Leave empty for every item.
- **Published date from / to** — `YYYY-MM-DD`, filters on the item's published date. Works with "Fetch full detail" on or off — the list page itself already carries the date.
- **Fetch full detail for each item** — when on (default), the actor also opens each item's own page for the news type, tag list (force + category) and full body text (one extra request per row). Turn off for a faster, list-only run (title + date + URL only).
- **Label for this watch** — a tag copied onto every row, useful when several scheduled watches share one dataset.
- **Maximum items to return** — stops paging once this many rows are collected (default 30, max 500).

### Example uses

- Track every new IOPC outcome naming a specific police force for a local newsroom or accountability site.
- Build a force-by-force police misconduct/prosecution timeline.
- Feed a legal or campaigning group's watch list for cases by category (e.g. "Corruption and abuse of power", "Death or serious injury").

### Notes

- Leave every filter empty to pull the newest items across all forces.
- The news list is newest-first, 12 per page (`/news?page=N`, 0-indexed); this actor
  pages through it and stops early once the "Published date from" boundary is passed,
  since the list is date-ordered.
- This actor covers **England & Wales** (IOPC jurisdiction: territorial police forces,
  British Transport Police and some other bodies). It does not cover the Police
  Investigations & Review Commissioner for Scotland or the Police Ombudsman for
  Northern Ireland.

# Actor input Schema

## `keyword` (type: `string`):

Free text matched against the news item title, e.g. 'Metropolitan Police', 'misconduct', 'dismissed'. Leave empty to include every item.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD. Only items published on or after this date.

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD. Only items published on or before this date.

## `fetchDetail` (type: `boolean`):

When on, the actor opens each news item's own page to also collect the news type, the tag list (police force name(s) plus category, e.g. 'Northumbria Police', 'Corruption and abuse of power') and the full body text. When off, only the title, published date and item URL are returned, which is faster and lighter.

## `watchLabel` (type: `string`):

Just a tag copied onto every output row (e.g. 'Met Police watch') so several scheduled watches can be told apart in one dataset or across runs.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stops paging through the IOPC news list once this many rows have been collected.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "fetchDetail": true,
  "maxItems": 30
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("hllerdgn80/uk-police-conduct-iopc-watchdog").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("hllerdgn80/uk-police-conduct-iopc-watchdog").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call hllerdgn80/uk-police-conduct-iopc-watchdog --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,hllerdgn80/uk-police-conduct-iopc-watchdog"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/QB1bu08kPwHfgEVS7/builds/X8N9EkgNMtlSXSjYh/openapi.json