Neil Wilby Media

The recently suspended Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, David Crompton, joined the police service in 1982. He is the son of Sir Dan Crompton, a former Manchester officer who later became Chief Constable of Notts Constabulary.

Crompton senior topped up his post-retirement pension by serving with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, a sinecure which is now most noted for him describing Hillsborough justice campaigners, in writing, as ‘vindictive, vexatious and cruel’ as a result of them opposing the appointment of Norman Bettison as Chief Constable of Merseyside.

15,000 Liverpool people, led by the indomitable Sheila Coleman, signed a protest petition – and it has never been clarified whether those scandalous words applied to the entire throng. For more background on the disgraceful conduct of Crompton Snr, and sight of a copy of that shocking letter, click here.

Crompton junior, a public schoolboy educated at fee-paying Bury Grammar School, and later a geography graduate of Salford University, was always going to have advantages not open to, shall we say, an ordinary bobby. He rose to the rank of Chief Superintendent in Greater Manchester Police, during which time (in 1994) he graduated through the Common Purpose programme, and transferred to West Yorkshire Police (WYP) in 2004, taking up the role of Assistant Chief Constable.

At that time, WYP was embroiled in a huge corruption scandal that was being investigated by neighbours, North Yorkshire Police, under the codename Operation Douglas. Crompton seems now, with hindsight, to have been a highly appropriate choice to assist in the orchestrating of a cover up in which no WYP officer, out of the eighteen that were identified as committing serious criminal offences, was ever prosecuted. Indeed, it is true to say that not one criminal in uniform even faced a disciplinary hearing.

Lord Justice Simon Brown, in a withering Supreme Court ruling, described some of those offences by West Yorkshire Police officers as part of the worst prosecutorial misconduct he had ever encountered by a police force. A full report on Operation Douglas can be found here.

David Crompton  became Deputy to the infamous Bettison in 2006 after the disgraced knight returned to policing following a two year sabbatical at CENTREX, an ACPO-funded police training organisation. Crompton’s other failings, apart from Operation Douglas, some of them equally disastrous, in those WYP roles, before and during the Bettison years, are covered elsewhere in some detail by uPSD (click here).

Given what was already known about David Crompton, his father’s callous attitude towards bereaved Hillsborough families, and following the disastrous tenure as an ACPO ranked officer at WYP, it would strike the independent observer as incredible that he could ever be chosen to lead a police force, even one as thoroughly discredited as its  South Yorkshire neighbour.

But South Yorkshire Police (SYP) had become desperate by the Spring of  2012, having first advertised the post of Chief Constable the previous Autumn, at the time of the departure of the now disgraced, Meredydd Hughes (pictured below). That initial selection process resulted in all the candidates, including Crompton, being rejected as not good enough.

A second attempt to hand over the poisoned chalice was undertaken and Crompton applied again (he was, according to a well placed source, being plugged for the role by Labour Party contacts close to the appointing body, South Yorkshire Police Authority). Two candidates came through this renewed process, including Crompton (even though he had been passed over first time around), but once Stuart Hyde withdrew his candidacy to take up the Chief’s role at Cumbria Constabulary,  SYP and Crompton were stuck with each other.

Some may even say, deserved one another.

One of Crompton’s very first acts, as a newly promoted Chief Constable, was to try and bury a perjury/perverting the course of justice complaint against one of his own South Yorkshire road traffic officers, PC 480 Gary Garner. Aided and abetted by his Head of Professional Standards, DCS Neil Jessop, who was one of the on-duty Hillsborough officers referred to the IPCC in September 2012. Jessop was, however, allowed to scuttle off into retirement in February 2013, even though his 30 years service were not completed until three months later. This neatly avoided any awkward questions over the Hillsborough cover-up, but would not protect Jessop if a rigorous criminal enquiry was instigated over the Garner cover-up.

The intended victim of the frame-up was none other than the author of this piece, Neil Wilby. But the Crown Prosecution Service withdrew the charge against him, less than a month before the intended trial date. There was no longer a realistic prospect of a conviction grounded in Garner’s deliberately false evidence. But pursuing their police officers for perjured CJA Section 9 witness statements – and prosecuting them – is not how things work in South Yorkshire Police, as Hillsborough and Orgreave justice campaigners well know.

Notwithstanding, of course, the comment attributed to Crompton in this BBC piece: “I think that if people (police officers) are shown to have acted criminally then they should face prosecution”. Click here to read full article.

Crompton himself was under investigation by an outside police force – supervised by the IPCC – at the time of publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel Report (12th September, 2012). This investigation had commenced in May 2012 and followed discrimination allegations made against him by no less than the former Legal Services Director at West Yorkshire Police, Ajaz Hussain. A fact Crompton conveniently forget to mention to reporters, TV crews and millions of readers/viewers around the UK, and beyond, on the fateful day that the truth emerged about the sheer depth and reach of the Hillsborough cover-up.

Crompton is now famously exposed by the Daily Star as needing ‘a hug and re-assurance’ from ACPO’s Sir Hugh Orde on the day the Panel Report was published. It might have been said a bucket of ice cold water to wake him up would have been more prescriptive. Crompton didn’t even know who Margaret Aspinall was, until Mark Thompson, the now-departed Head of Media at SYP reminded him: “David, she’s chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group. She lost her 18-year-old son James in the disaster.” Readers will draw their own conclusions from that gaffe.

In February 2013, even worse emerged when Crompton was forced to apologise as emails, that he had tried desperately to conceal from public view for months, were forced into the public domain. He accused one of the campaign groups representing Hillsborough families of “lying”. He made the comments in the offending email four days before the publication of the Panel report in September 2012. He said the families’ “version of certain events has become ‘the truth’ even though it isn’t“.

Crompton has not specified what falsehoods he was referring to and has consistently refused to make himself available to answer any further questions. Which is typical of the man known as a “walking disaster” at West Yorkshire Police.

In that particular round of correspondence, Crompton emailed the force’s Assistant Chief Constable Andy Holt (also ACPO lead for football policing matters), and Mark Thompson (see above) on 8th September 2012, four days before the HIP Report was released. The offensive email was ordered to be disclosed by the then South Yorkshire Police & Crime commissioner, Shaun Wright, following a Freedom of Information request by the Daily Star’s Jonathan Corke. The game was up for Crompton as soon as that decision was reached.

The Police Commissioner said the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, had both been informed of the existence of the email and Wright was “disappointed at the use of such languaged” by Crompton. IPCC Commissioner Nicholas Long concurred – and noted that the content of David Crompton’s email was “at best ill judged, and at worst offensive and upsetting”

In the email, Crompton asked for a meeting with Holt and Thompson to discuss launching a web page about Hillsborough, with links to documents. Including previous apologies and memos. He continued: “We then publicise it on Twitter. In effect, it amounts to the case for the defence. One thing is certain – the Hillsborough Campaign for Justice (sic) will be doing their version…..in fact their version of certain events has become ‘the truth’ even though it isn’t“. A quite astonishing passage in the light of subsequent revelations and jury determinations at the new Hillsborough inquests.

Three days after the publication of the HIP report, during which the Prime Minister apologised twice for what the bereaved families, and survivors, had suffered at the hands of South Yorkshire Police, Crompton made his now infamous ‘The Cupboard is Bare’ statement, concerning what had already been disclosed to the Panel, exclusively to a local newspaper (click here to read the full article). Subsequent events showed that Crompton had lied to the Sheffield Star (as he set out to deceive throughout almost all of his WYP tenure) as revelation after revelation emerged about what had not been disclosed to the Hillsborough Independent Panel by South Yorkshire Police. A situation that was to repeat itself during the IPCC’s two year scoping investigation into events at the Orgreave coking plant in June 1984 and the fitting-up of striking miners with false criminal charges arising from events of that fateful day – and beyond.

The Orgreave miscarriages of justice were referred by Crompton to the IPCC in November 2012, following a David Conn piece ‘Hillsborough and the Battle of Orgreave: One police force, two disgraces’ that appeared in The Guardian (click here for full story), which then led to a BBC Inside Out documentary outlining the criminality of South Yorkshire Police officers (click here).

In fairness to Crompton, he was a beat bobby in Manchester when the criminal acts by SYP officers at Orgreave (and in other mining communities) took place. He was, however, in charge of the force when the IPCC complained publicly, more than once, about their scoping investigation being obstructed by SYP’s failure to release all relevant documentation.

At the outcome of the IPCC’s exercise it was very clear from their two reports that serious criminal offences were disclosed (read full IPCC reports here). Instead of arrests and charges being brought against the mainly senior officers responsible, Crompton ducked in behind the quite incredulous line peddled by the IPCC: The offences took place too long ago and it’s not proportionate to deal with the perpetrators through the criminal justice system. The unspoken proposition being that if a police cover-up can be kept going long enough no officer will be charged at the end of it.

Also laid bare was the lie that Crompton told the whole country in September 2012 when he said anyone guilty of a criminal offence should be prosecuted. Orgreave justice campaigners are presently awaiting news from the Home Secretary as to whether she will order a public inquiry, following a recent meeting with her in Westminster.

The Rotherham child sex abuse scandal had already been broken open by The Times’ Andrew Norfolk (pictured above) in the same month as the Hillsborough truth day – and it was to reveal a scale of police incompetence, indifference and, in some cases downright wickedness, exhibited whilst hundreds and possibly thousands of young girls were being raped, trafficked and tortured.

What the The Times investigation was also to reveal, once more, was the permanent mindset of the already discredited chief of South Yorkshire Police. David Crompton immediately tried to downplay the piece and sought to discredit Norfolk’s reporting, which has, of course, subsequently received universal acclaim and won many awards.

Crompton’s November 2012 letter to Home Affairs Select Committee can be read by clicking here. In it, Crompton falsely and, it is believed deliberately, claimed that the problem of children being systematically raped was nowhere near as extensive as had been claimed in the newspaper reports and he, further, attached credence to a 2010 co-agency child sex exploitation report, in which South Yorkshire Police were key stakeholders. This ‘whitewash’ has subsequently been entirely discredited by first, the 2013 Jay Report (read here) and later, the 2014 Casey Report (read here). Both of which were hugely critical of the roles of South Yorkshire Police (and Rotherham Council).

The criticisms were not confined to historic events either that, in theory, would leave Crompton, largely, in the clear. The condemnations of the police inaction, up to the time of writing of both reports, were both stinging and relentless: Crompton’s force was still badly letting down victims, long after he became Chief Constable.

He has made two subsequent appearances at the Home Affairs Select Committee when his evidence has, at best, appeared unconvincing and, in places, hopelessly inadequate. These dressings-down by the cross-party panel of MP’s have led directly to the National Crime Agency being appointed to take over primary responsibility for child sex investigation in South Yorkshire – and indirectly to an external inspection of the force being ordered by the Police and Crime Commissioner, Dr Alan Billings. It is, therefore, safe to say that Crompton has lost the faith and trust of his masters – not to mention victims and the wider public – to be able to deal effectively with the protection of children on his patch.

The hardworking and inspirational Rotherham MP, Sarah Champion, also has very little faith in Crompton as she rounded on him as recently as February 2015 in this Helen Pidd interview in The Guardian. Miss Champion didn’t mince her words and accused the Force of “crass policing” when dealing with CSE victims (full Guardian piece here).

For those that have the time, and the specialist interest, the full portfolio of The Times investigations into grooming and child sexual abuse, spread over five years and across into many areas of the country, can be read by clicking here. Whilst the shocking and wilful negligence, and seeming complicity in child sexual exploitation, by South Yorkshire Police looms large – other forces such as Thames Valley and Greater Manchester also fare badly. The latter, of course, one of the other forces scrutinised by Neil Wilby and uPSD.

Turning attention back, specifically, to Crompton, he is not only incompetent and dishonest, proven many times over, he is also incredibly thick-skinned (or possibly just thick) and largely indifferent to criticism, in whatever form that arrives. He also cares little for the feelings of victims, or for public opinion. Despite his constant bleating to the contrary.

A vivid demonstration of those characteristics came in August 2014 when he recruited his old West Yorkshire Police chum, Ingrid Lee, as an Assistant Chief Constable. Lee has three major claims to fame in her policing career: none of which look too attractive in the cold light of day. During her tenure as Head of Organised Crime in WYP, her team managed to have £3.5 million of Class A drugs (cocaine, heroin and cannabis largely) stolen from their property and exhibits store at the showpiece Carr Gate complex in Wakefield. These drugs were then recycled back on to the streets of Leeds and made the thieves, which included one of her own detectives (DC Nick McFadden), around £1.8 million in cash.

Incredulously, after he was first arrested, McFadden was offered a plea bargain, sanctioned by Lee, that if he admitted to theft by finding (he had claimed he found a bag with a large quantity of cash in it by the M62 motorway) then no drugs, or money laundering charges, would be brought. He would get a sentence of 4 years, rather than the 23 years in prison that he actually received.

Another former member of Lee’s aptly named Organised Crime Group found himself in jail soon after. This was long serving Detective Sergeant Chris Taylor, who was sentenced to three years in prison for his part in the infamous multi-million pound Muldoon timeshare fraud.

Lastly, but most crucially, Ingrid Lee was the subject of derision in every national press and broadcast outlet following her disgraceful Operation Newgreen report which ‘whitewashed’ West Yorkshire Police’s role in allowing Jimmy Savile to evade capture for almost fifty years, during which time he was regularly sex offending against children in and around his home city of Leeds. It was an astonishingly inept piece of work, dishonestly grounded – and a kick in the teeth for Savile’s many victims. Why then, did David Crompton, just months later, pick Lee as a member of his Command Team and then earmark her for a role as CSE spokeswoman for the Force?

It is almost as if he is mocking child sex abuse victims.

In September 2014, just a month after Ingrid Lee (pictured above) had joined the SYP team, Crompton was in hot water again with the Home Affairs Select Committee. This time a bungled house raid of pop star Sir Cliff Richard‘s home in Sunningdale, Berkshire which was filmed throughout via helicopter and ground cameras and broadcast live by the BBC.

It was a hapless freak show organised personally by Crompton and his Head of Communications, Carrie Goodwin, who is another ex WYP recruit to the Crompton ‘gang’. Goodwin, incidentally, was part of the WYP Comms team that put out the infamous Sir Norman Bettison ‘blame the Liverpool fans’ press release which, indirectly, led to Bettison leaving the police service six weeks later. (Miss Goodwin is also responsible for recruitment of a SYP Hillsborough PR specialist on £45,000 pa, who worked for three months and spent the subsequent nine months on sick leave).

Cliff Richard has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. He was interviewed by the police ten days after the televised, five-hour trawl of his property in connection with an offence that took place 30 years ago and 160 miles away. Keith Vaz, on behalf of HASC told Crompton that he, and his police force, were guilty of ‘sheer incompetence’. The beleaguered chief then wrote to Vaz in February 2015 to say that the investigation into Cliff Richard ‘had increased significantly in size’. This was yet another example of Crompton’s economy with truth: The investigation by then comprised of just three allegations in total, now reduced to two as one of the allegations has proved incapable of substantiation.

There has, to date, still been no arrest or charges brought against the alleged perpetrator in an investigation that now stretches almost into its nineteenth month. It is a shambles and it is not difficult to hypothesise that, ultimately, this will lead to a hugely embarrassing climbdown by Crompton. It would also lead to immediate civil action launched by Richards’ solicitors, Kingsley Napley, who will be seeking a huge sum in damages from South Yorkshire Police on behalf of their client.

At a more basic policing level, South Yorkshire Police under its hapless, hopeless chief constable are a disaster: In October 2014 following freedom of information requests it was discovered that the force has a staggering 75% of its crimes unsolved which begs the question what officers do all day apart from create a villain’s paradise.

Crimes which have not been solved in just the past four years include four murders, 14 attempted murders, 13 child abductions, over 100,000 thefts and 61,320 reports of criminal damage. A full newspaper report on the crisis can be read here. Just two months later, it was revealed in the same newspaper that a staggering 28 murders remain unsolved by SYP and that the force’s cold case review team faced extinction. So, apart from thousands of children being raped, trafficked and tortured in the area for decades there are probably two dozen, or more, murderers running loose on the patch.

Most recently, South Yorkshire Police have come under yet another stinging attack following the publication of a report compiled by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. It finds that, up to June 2015, the force are still letting victims of child sex abuse down. Of 28 investigations examined by HMIC, only 2 (two) were up to scratch. The report (which can be read in full here) is yet another damning indictment of Crompton and the force he commands, including his CSE lead, Ingrid Lee. Calls for Crompton’s resignation have been led by former Sheffield Council leader and now life peer, Lord Scriven.

So, the Teflon Man survived yet anther crisis – and ten years of the most alarming catalogue of quite catastrophic failures both at South Yorkshire Police and, before that, in the West Yorkshire force still see him serving as a police leader. Little wonder that morale in the force is at rock bottom and the rank and file officers are leaving the force in droves, according to local Police Federation chairman, Neil Bowles.

David Crompton has endeared himself little to front line bobbies, almost from the moment he arrived in post as Chief Constable. Within the first two weeks, he had announced a barmy plan to replace all beat constables with community officers, a scheme that was widely condemned by police commentators and senior politicians, which included the Labour leader at the time, Ed Miliband and a former Home Secretary and Sheffield MP, David Blunkett. Crompton excused the fiasco by describing it as ‘a storm in a teacup’ but many viewed it as a clear signposting of the chaotic shambles that has been a feature of his reign, ever since. (The full Daily Mail story on the PCSO plan can be read by clicking here).

But the final nail in the Crompton coffin may come sooner rather than later with the publication of Operation Lamp. An investigation by Greater Manchester Police into widespread corruption in West Yorkshire Police that led to the malicious prosecution and wrongful imprisonment of one of its own officers (read more here). The man who dismissed ex PC Danny Major (pictured below with father Eric) from the Force in a quite breathtaking kangaroo court was – you’ve guessed it – David Crompton. It may not be the biggest surprise, either, to learn that the man who has advocated on behalf of the Major family for the past three years, and brought about the GMP investigation, is the author of this piece, Neil Wilby.

Page last updated Wednesday 27th April, 2016 at 2220hrs

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