Earlier this week, an exclusive article revealed to an unsuspecting public the known misdemeanours of a ‘bad apple’ West Yorkshire Police detective (read in full here).
It is an important story because the reckless and, at times, dishonest actions of former Huddersfield based detective constable, Mark Lunn, may have placed the convictions of 45 men at risk.
Lengthy and forensic, the piece was almost entirely grounded in police emails and reports, together with notes from nine days of court reporting from the hearing of a high profile, high value civil claim in Bradford (read more here).
But, within the most explosive and damning piece of evidence, it has emerged that Lunn is only a bit part player: On 28th November, 2012, at the conclusion of an internal inquiry into his wrongdoing, Detective Inspector Nick Wallen, as he was then, wrote to a number of WYP colleagues in these terms:
“Subject: DC 3602 Mark Lunn
“Ladies/Gents. Our investigation. is now concluded, there is no need for me to re-iterate what is in this report.
“My own view is that Kirklees SMT and PSD were right to remove DC Lunn from the investigation [Operation Thatcham] and to investigate respectively (sic). There is no doubt that had this issue been raised, in the first instance, at Crown Court, that the case would have been seriously compromised and may have lead (sic) to the prosecution being withdrawn.
“Mark will have undoubtedly learnt lessons from this, and his removal from CID duties to his current post [Huddersfield South Neighbourhood Police Team] may be the most suitable sanction for him.
“So, I thank everyone for their efforts regarding this matter, PSD will contact DCI Jeffrey regarding any other sanction for Mark that might be considered appropriate.
“Regards, Nick W”
The internal inquiry was one of a number of investigations carried out into Lunn’s misconduct. Another followed a complaint raised by Opus Law, a leading firm of Bradford solicitors, on 14thMay, 2012. Opus were not made aware of the internal investigation, or its outcome. It is understood, from a lawyer formerly employed by Opus, that their complaint was not concluded before Lunn left the force in August, 2013.
The most senior of the recipients of the Wallen email, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Jeffrey (as he was then), retired in July 2017 at the rank of superintendent and was central to the previous article about Lunn.
Jeffrey hails from a family of police officers (read more here) and had first been made aware of the concerns over Lunn’s conduct, and the Opus Law letter, at a meeting on 8thJune, 2012. He instructed the local Professional Standards Department officers to carry out a scoping exercise. He was not aware that a covert police operation, codenamed Waffleedge, was already investigating Mark Lunn.
Nick Wallen is now a chief superintendent and Head of WYP’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team: A remarkable rise for an officer whose career is littered with controversial investigations and faux pas. Not least the murder of Leeds schoolteacher, Ann Maguire, about which her widowed husband, Don, has repeatedly and justifiably complained and the ‘Bradford 4’ acid attack murder in which clear, and unchallenged, findings of evidence tampering forms part of the miscarriage of justice case of Andrew Feather Jnr, who was found on that evidence to be the secondary getaway driver. Mr Feather’s case presently rests with the Criminal Case Review Commission. He and his family has received widespread and positive publicity from a large number of regional and national newspaper articles, plus broadcast packages from the BBC and Sky.
The author of this piece has spent many hundreds of hours, collectively, on both cases. In the Maguire case there is a bizarre restriction on access to documents that were used in the inquest touching on Ann’s death, that Don has scrupulously observed, much to the frustration of both of us. Those include such as the investigation policy book (or log).
In the Feather case, unrestricted access was given to all the materials disclosed to the family, and the fruits of the remarkable post-conviction sleuthing of Andrew Feather Senior, which drew warm praise from no less than the bench at the Court of Appeal.
To be clear, there is no direct evidence that links Nick Wallen to any wrongdoing, but he was the senior investigating officer (SIO) in both cases and, as such should have signed off every action and decision in the policy book. If, indeed, actions that led to grotesque incompetence, or wrongdoing, were ever recorded there, about which there has to be considerable doubt, given the force’s very long and troubled history where policy logs and similar procedural or evidential requirements are concerned.
It can, however, safely be said that, in both cases, the timings relating to the murders, and the movements of those at or near the scene, now meticulously plotted and at variance to the police version, give rise to suspicion about the integrity of the rest of the investigation. Only a robust, thorough, independent enquiry, by another police force or policing body, can begin to allay those doubts.
The internal investigation into Mark Lunn, and the Wallen email at its conclusion, is concerning, to say the least. Taken at its face, it appears that a conscious decision was made not to disclose material, either to the Crown Prosecution Service or the criminal defence teams of the defendants, in a trial in which Lunn was centrally involved. As he was ‘officer in the case’ in only two investigations, Operation Thatcham and the one that preceded it, the field is very narrow.
The Criminal Procedures and Investigation Act, 1996 is explicit about what should be disclosed in criminal trials and failure to meet those statutory obligations could amount to an offence of perverting the course of justice. Or a conspiracy of the same, as this decision to deliberately conceal disclosure appears to involve at least five officers, including Paul Jeffrey.
West Yorkshire Police has said, in writing, that it is not investigating the matters exposed in the first Lunn article and, in those circumstances, a copy of the Wallen email was sent to Gerry Wareham, Chief Prosecutor for the Yorkshire and Humber Region, with a request that the matter be further examined by him and then referred to an appropriate policing body for a more complete investigation.
Mr Wareham, who features elsewhere on this website in a seriously troubling case (read more here), responded promptly and to the effect that he had no locus to investigate any offences that may be disclosed within the Wallen email. He has written to West Yorkshire Police, effectively passing the buck back to them, knowing they have no intention of progressing a matter that would cause the force huge reputational damage.
Mr Wareham expressed no alarm, or even mild concern over what had been disclosed to him which, put shortly, was that the police had duped the CPS in high profile trials, leading to the conviction of 45 men, that now appear, on their face, to be unsafe.
He also appears to be unaware of the Attorney General’s robust, zero-tolerance stance on this very issue (read more here).
As expected, following the publication of the first Lunn article other material has emerged: A former Kent, Essex and Metropolitan Police officer, Darren Jones, says that the account of their interaction, given by Lunn in police interview, is false. They did meet in London on one occasion, but ‘Operation Thatcham was never discussed’ says Jones.
It has also been revealed that, in 2014, Lunn renewed contact with Mr Jones. He told him that he was still looking to start up his own fraud investigation company. This time the trading style was set to be Pennine Investigations. There is no such company registered at Companies House.
Materials relating to the now defunct Quo Vadis Investigation Services Ltd (QV) have also been disclosed. They show that Mark Lunn was listed as ‘Operations Director’ and made several outlandish claims in his biography on the company website. Not least that he had ‘over 20 years of experience as a CID officer with West Yorkshire Police’. In truth, he only served as a police officer for 19 years, and less than 5 of those were as a detective.
Companies House records show that Lunn became registered was a Director of QV on 31st July, 2013. He didn’t leave West Yorkshire Police until the following month. By October of that same year he had resigned, following a letter sent to QV, by Opus Law, pointing out why he had been removed from Operation Thatcham and the falsehoods on his biography.
A fraud investigator who made fraudulent claims about his own credentials was more than the other directors could countenance.
A consultant to QV, Peter Taylor joined and left on the same days as Mark Lunn, so there appears to have been a link between the two and Lunn was, very likely, leveraging the ‘success’ of Operation Thatcham to make these connections and secure positions that appeared well above his station. Taylor, rather immodestly, describes himself as ‘a highly regarded Counter Fraud professional with over 25 years experience’. He currently runs a company called Peter Taylor Consultants Ltd. Mr Taylor has been invited to prove further insight into his apparent association with the disgraced Mark Lunn.
In 2015, according to Lunn’s LinkedIn page, he joined the Home Office as an investigator. At the civil trial in Bradford the court heard that the belief of the claimant’s legal team was that he was working for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) at their Wakefield office. On that same CV, Lunn lists ‘well versed in police misconduct procedures’ as one of his self-stated competencies. That appears to support that hypothesis.
There is an unexplained gap 16 month gap in his LinkedIn CV, from when Lunn left WYP until he joined the Home Office. There is no mention of the ill-starred association with QV Fraud Investigation Services or Pennine Investigations. He is still listed as working at the Home Office up to the present time, but also now runs a jobbing builder business and sells free range eggs in the village where he lives. A man of many parts.
The press office of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was approached on 20th September, 2019 to confirm, or otherwise, whether Mark Lunn had worked for their predecessor organisation, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and, if so, how would public concerns over such an appointment be addressed. No response has been received from the ‘police watchdog’. Adverse inference can, of course, be drawn from that silence from an organisation that lists openness and transparency as two of its core values.
John James, a Leeds solicitor, has not responded to the email sent to him seeking an account of his interaction with Lunn. It was claimed, in police interview, by Lunn, that James was a ‘prospective co-director’ of a bogus company ‘Insurance Fraud Consultants Ltd’. It was also claimed in that interview that the two had met during police investigations upon which Lunn was engaged.
The Chairman of the perpetually noisy West Yorkshire Police Federation, Brian Booth, also failed to respond to the enquiries made of him and his association with Mark Lunn.
The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) promised answers to these questions put to them concerning their involvement in Operation Thatcham: 1. A short statement from Insurance Fraud Bureau, covering the police decision to, effectively, conceal the serious misdemeanours of the lead investigator in Operation Thatcham from the CPS, and the defendants’ legal teams, would be helpful. 2. It would also assist, also, to know if WYP received any funding from IFB for Operation Thatcham.
After an inexplicable delay, they provided this statement which ducked both issues: ‘IFB’s role is to provide evidence of insurance fraud to UK police forces and to assist forces with their investigations into this criminal activity. In these circumstances, the relevant police force takes the lead with IFB providing information in an administrative role’.
A series of questions was put to the press office of 1st Century Motor Insurance in connection with the business plans for ‘Insurance Fraud Consultants Ltd’ that Lunn had compiled on police computers. After a series of meetings with two of their Directors at their Sussex HQ, he was asking the insurance company to make an investment of £183,000 in the bogus company. Police documents appear to show that at least some of that money was paid to Lunn. Clarification over the questions put to 1st Century was sought by their press officer and, following receipt, answers to at least some of the questions are promised in the near future.
In response to a freedom of information request that asked if West Yorkshire Police had undertaken a risk assessment, or a process whereby the they would have confirmed the authenticity and legal standing of the IFB, WYP said: ‘We hold no information. The Insurance Fraud Bureau has been contacted for basic information about the car insurance industry. They are not funding any aspect of the enquiry, it was a police-initiated operation. No risk assessment has been undertaken’.
Of greater concern is that the police gave what appear to be false answers to other questions in that same request. Firstly, about the transfer of officers from other duties to run Operation Thatcham: They say there were none, Mark Lunn was certainly one as he was transferred from Huddersfield CID to the Proceeds of Crime Team at Batley Police Station to run Thatcham. Secondly, when asked whether any complaints had been received as a result of this investigation, they said there were none. In reality, there appears to be, from documentary evidence, at least three against Lunn, one of which it is known was from Opus Law.
The West Yorkshire Police press office has not repsonded to questions put to them about Mark Lunn and Operation Thatcham. Or provided a statement, as requested.
Nevertheless, and in spite of the obfuscation and false trail left by the police and the stonewalling by their perenially disgraced ‘watchdog’ and the ultra-defensive CPS, enquiries from this quarter are continuing, The next ports of call are the Police Superintendents’ Association, the Home Office, the Attorney General and the Justice Parliamentary Select Committee to test whether any amongst them has the resolve to tackle this disgraceful situation.
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Page last updated at 1130hrs on Saturday 28th September, 2019
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Photo credit: Telegraph & Argus
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