Neil Wilby Media

In this, the first of a short series reviewing the past year, a second look is taken at two cases of miscreant police officers being shielded by senior management in their respective police forces.

In August, a very powerful story was published on this website. The latest in a lengthy series of exclusives dating back to early 2018.

It was a relentless, excoriating take-down of an organisation that staggers from crisis to crisis, scandal to scandal. It’s title was propitious, given what was to happen within Greater Manchester Police less than four months later: ‘Rotten to its core‘ (read in full here).

Within that piece there were exclusive and sensational revelations about yet another grotesque ‘cover-up’ by GMP. The information was triangulated from a number of very well connected policing and media sources – and confirmed, to a very limited extent, by the force press office.

In short, a serving police officer, attached to an elite unit and who cannot be named for legal reasons, committed very serious criminal offences in the early part of this year and has yet to face any form of justice.

A member of the public caught with significant quantities of Class A drugs about his person, not once but twice, would have appeared at the local magistrates’ court within days of being apprehended. Especially, if there were child safeguarding issues also in play.

Two weeks later, there was a sequel, headlined ‘Even more rotten‘ (read in full here). Another exclusive, it has also received no press coverage elsewhere.

Central to the piece was a letter sent to the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester by Gail Hadfield Grainger, a nationally known justice campaigner. The turgid response from the perennially ineffective Beverley Hughes told little, apart from confirming that ‘a criminal investigation was ongoing’.

Gail’s stake in the case is that the subject officer was a significant part of the police operation, codenamed Shire, that led to the death of her partner, Anthony Grainger. He was also active in the run-up to the public inquiry into the shooting that took place in 2017, reflecting his key role.

The now departed, and disgraced, Ian Hopkins, an unmitigated disaster as a chief constable, was said to be anxious not to give the bereaved Grainger family another stick with which to beat him and the force. Particularly, in the light of the scathing public inquiry report published in July, 2019 (read here).

The revelation that one of Operation Shire‘s key officers was corrupt, and a drug dealer, would have piled on the agony for both GMP and Hopkins. Not at all aided by the further revelation that the predecessor investigation to Shire, Operation Blyth, also had a now-convicted drug dealer in its midst.

It is worth repeating yet again, for emphasis, that the public interest is not served at all well by senior police officers interfering with justice, simply to preserve their own reputation. On the watch of Ian Hopkins it was not, sadly, a rare occurrence. Greatly aided by zero oversight by the Mayor, Andy Burnham and his Deputy Mayor – and the so-called ‘police watchdogs’ who simply sat on their collective hands whilst the country’s second largest police force descended into corrupt chaos.

Will the New Year bring justice for the victims of the corrupt, drug dealing, Greater Manchester detective? For the moment it seems not, but with the police force now in ‘Special Measures‘, as ordered by the Home Secretary, then just maybe a more rigorous scrutiny of this troubling matter can be undertaken.

The second strand to this piece features an article published at the beginning of December detailing another police ‘cover-up’, this time from across the Pennine hills. Great care has been taken not to identify the senior officer, beyond the fact that s/he is serving with one of the Yorkshire forces.

A large enough pool to prevent jigsaw identification, although the officer’s identity within police circles appears widely known, judging from the unprecedented feedback received privately following publication of the article.

There is no criminal offence involved in this particular case, but allegations of an overt racist act that could have far reaching consequences, not only for the employing force but for the wider police service, whose obsession with diversity and inclusion is all consuming. Which spawned the headline ‘Say one thing, do another‘ (read in full here).

Large amongst those two-faced organisations, who routinely discredit themselves by their proximity to such covering up, is the much ridiculed College of Policing (read more here). They had the audacity to take the miscreant officer into their Ryton-on-Dunsmore headquarters for a week, knowing that, at the time, s/he was banned from all other police premises.

This, presumably, to give the appearance that all was well – and throw enquiring journalists, and fellow officers, away from the scent of corruption.

The actions of the subject police force, since the exclusive article was published on this website, give all the appearance of downplaying the incident and desperately wanting it to go away. There has, for example, been no referral of the alleged gross misconduct to the police watchdog. A mandatory requirement in the prevailing circumstances. They, in turn, despite being very aware of what is alleged, have not called in the investigation under their statutory powers.

There has been no intervention from the subject force’s police and crime commissioner, either, despite both s/he and her/his staff being highly aware of this troubling case and its impact on the electorate in the force area.

Once again, the public are ill served by these ‘top brass’ shenanigans and concealing racists in the ranks goes very much against the grain. Not to mention the huge amounts of taxpayer funds wasted on payments to officers on gardening leave or suspension.

But, without a greater public outcry, or a whistleblower prepared to speak out publicly, and with compelling evidence to boot, those same very senior officers will continue to laugh in the face of journalists attempting to hold them to account.

The outrage of decent, genuine officers, past and present, in all three Yorkshire forces, continues unabated. This is the comment of one, a number of others are couched in rather more forthright language: ‘Inevitably, front line morale will be sapped once more by poor judgement of our superiors and lack of recognisable leadership. I don’t want to work with or for a racist’.

Page last updated: Wednesday 30th December, 2020 at 1205 hours

Photo Credits: Independent Office for Police Conduct

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