Neil Wilby Media

Following a serious conduct complaint lodged with them on 12th May 2025, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has referred the matter back to the police force’s own Professional Standards Department to investigate.

The complaint, against one named junior officer and, as yet, unidentified decision-making senior officers within Cheshire Constabulary, alleges that a ‘cover-up’ over a lecture on media strategy delivered at a police communicators event in March 2024, is in full train (read more here).

The subject media strategy is highly controversial – and becoming more so by the day – as it sets out Cheshire’s actions before, during and after the trial of Lucy Letby. After two trials, the latest of which concluded in July 2024, the 35 year old former neo-natal nurse stood convicted of murdering seven premature babies and attempting to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital where she worked.

The innocence campaign railing against those Letby convictions, dismissed by the Establishment as ‘background noise’ up to just a few months ago, now puts both policing, and the wider criminal justice system, under unprecedented public, political, media and professional scrutiny.

Cheshire Constabulary do not fare at all well under that spotlight: Controlling its largely self-praising messaging through favoured journalists – and shutting out those reporters with more penetrating, public interest enquiries.

It is an approach that strikes at the heart of what a police force should stand for – and the recent complaint references the Standards of Professional Behaviour, as set out in the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020. Specifically, it is alleged that the actions of Cheshire’s senior officers lack integrity, constitute failures of their duties as police officers and amount to disreputable conduct, given the adverse publicity these matters have generated.

The intervening few days between the complaint being lodged and the publication of this article have not been kind to those same senior officers, either: Firstly, it has emerged that the force has, unlawfully, declined to answer another freedom of information request on a similar topic and is now months overdue. Secondly, Cheshire continues to breach the Cabinet Office Code of Practice by refusing to acknowledge, and provide a target date for response to the internal review requested over the ‘vexatious’ freedom of information enquiry at the heart of this enquiry.

Neil Wilby, who made the FOIA request , the subsequent conduct complaint and is also the author of this article, says: ” The fact that the IOPC has simply passed the complaint along to Cheshire Constabulary doesn’t surprise me, it’s a reflex response for them. But, expecting that particular police force to impartially investigate its own officers, given what is in issue, would appear far-fetched to most independent observers.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Neil Wilby is a journalist, court reporter and transparency campaigner who has reported on police misconduct, regulatory failures, and criminal and civil justice since 2009. He is the founder and editor of Neil Wilby Media, launched in 2015.