Sir
The Hillsborough inquests verdict is the biggest story around at present with the conduct of South Yorkshire Police exposed as appalling beyond comprehension.
It has ended the career of my long term adversary, David Crompton, and he deserves every ounce of opprobrium and contempt that will come his way. I hope some of my own articles – such as this one https://neilwilby.com/2016/03/01/david-crompton-the-south-yorkshire-police-years/ – helped him on his way.
I spent a fair amount of time in that airless, featureless converted office block in Warrington that was prepared as a temporary coroner’s court to hear the new inquests. To listen to the same old lies peddled relentlessly by police officers sickened the bereaved families, the survivors of the Disaster, their legal teams and the journalists reporting from court. We will never know in detail what the jury thought of this repulsive conduct, but the verdicts they delivered spoke volumes.
There is a link here to the good people of North Yorkshire because their Chief Constable, Dave Jones, is facing mounting criticism about how he runs his own police force. A contemporary of David Crompton at Greater Manchester Police where they were both chief superintendents, at the same time in the early years of this century, gives a clue as to what might follow for CC Jones.
North Yorkshire Police has been under scrutiny by me for over a year now and what I have found has shocked me profoundly: Since the launch of the uPSD website (www.upsd.co.uk) I had laboured under the belief that their big city neighbours, West Yorkshire Police had more integrity issues than the other two Yorkshire forces put together. Now that view is subject to revision.
A propensity by a police force such as North Yorkshire to break the law, calculatingly and relentlessly, in areas that are easily visible to the enquiring mind of investigative journalist does not bode well for those matters that require a little more digging out. NYP simply do not regard themselves as bound in any way by the Freedom of Information Act; the Data Protection Act; the Police Reform Act; IPCC Statutory Guidance; Code of Ethics or Police (Conduct) Regulations. The police flout them with impunity and – seemingly – with the tacit approval of those at the top of the management pyramid.
There is also this worrying culture of poor communication. Ask a difficult question and you are almost guaranteed not to get an answer. Or, if you do eventually get an answer there is a fair chance it will be untrue. This does not sit easily with the Chief Constable’s script on his force being ‘open and transparent’.
Equally worrying is the attitude of NYP towards its critics, which is a hair trigger response that involves denigrating and smearing – and in extreme cases spending huge sums of public money trying to silence journalists via the courts.
The North Yorkshire Police habit of senior officers helping themselves to public funds has also resurfaced under the regime of CC Jones. He and two other senior officers – DCC Tim Madgwick and C/Supt Lisa Winward – are the beneficiaries of approaching £100,000 of free legal fees to fund a private civil court claim. This is a scandal that goes beyond the financial transgressions of the infamous former NYP chief officers, Grahame Maxwell and Adam Briggs.
It was Lord Maginnis of Drumglass who uttered these words in Parliament in 2011 about North Yorkshire Police: ‘That particularly dubious constabulary that merits careful investigation’
I have taken the Noble Lord’s words to heart.
Yours etc
Neil Wilby
Neil Wilby Media 