Stonewall Jones: A Study in Failure of Leadership

Stonewall Jones:  A Study in Failure of Leadership

•  – Crime & Parliamentary Affairs Correspondent TIM HICKS reports on the performance of  Chief Constable Dave JONES of the North Yorkshire Police.

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Home Affairs Select Committee will launch an inquiry next month into the Police’s relationship with organised crime

An article in the Independent recently caught my eye.  It concerned Police officers implicated in corruption.

“ The inquiry, which will allow MPs to hear from witnesses under the protection of parliamentary privilege, follows a series of scandals including the inquiries relating to Stephen Lawrence, Daniel Morgan, phone-hacking and Plebgate.

It comes as The Independent can reveal for the first time the Government’s official estimate of how many members of police staff were suspected of being compromised by dealings with criminals.

An analysis of intelligence by Home Office researchers found between 0.5 and 1 per cent of the 200,000 police officers and civilian employees in England and Wales in 2003 were “potentially corrupt”, and involved in leaking information to criminals, stealing property during raids, fabricating evidence, helping villains to escape prosecution and “using their power to obtain money or sexual favours from the public”.

One investigator is quoted as saying: “A good villain can’t operate without having a bent officer…it’s impossible.”

The report said the suspected criminality was not limited to junior officers and found “examples of higher-ranking officers implicated in corruption or other unethical behaviour.”

It also found “a systemic problem with officers sharing a “solidarity …that stands in the way of colleagues reporting on one another where corruption is evident.

In one force, 15 per cent of all corrupt activity related to the disclosure of information to criminals, and 11 per cent to the “inappropriate association with criminals”.

Currently, six out of the forty-three Chief Constables in England and Wales are under investigation for misconduct.  They are:

• Wiltshire Chief Constable Patrick Geenty.  Full story here.

• Greater Manchester Police’s Sir Peter Fahy, in connection with misconduct allegations into a poorly handled investigation into a child sex offender.  Full story here.

• Avon and Somerset’s Chief Constable Nick Garvan.  Full story here.

• Gloucestershire’s Chief Constable Suzette Davenport.  Full story here.

• Northamptonshire’s Chief Constable Adrian Lee, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ spokesman on policing ethics is being investigated in connection with the Nunes Case.  Full story here:  here.

• Staffordshire Police Chief Constable Jane Sawyers and West Midlands Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale are also being investigated in connection with the Nunes case above.

In addition, two Chief Constables have recently been sacked for misconduct.  These are:

• Chief Constable Sean Price of Cleveland Police.  Full story here.  His Deputy, Derek Bonnard was also sacked.

• And Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison of South Yorkshire Police, who retired prematurely in the wake of the Hillsborough Police cover up scandal.

North Yorkshire Police Chief Officers.

So what is the situation like in North Yorkshire Police?

Regrettably the North Yorks Enquirer’s experience mirrors the Home Office findings.

• Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell was pushed out over allegations of nepotism and misuse of police funds.  Full report here.

• Deputy Chief Constable Adam Briggs took retirement prior to a scandal over his expense allowances: Full report here.

• Assistant Chief Constable Sue Cross, tried to corruptly whitewash North Yorkshire Police protection of the Peter Jaconelli paedophile ring and whose report now stands completely discredited.  NYE investigation here.

• Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick and Detective Superintendent Heather Pearson have been repeatedly and publicly accused of being corrupt police officers by the North Yorks Enquirer.  This concerns an illegal arrest operation mounted against a journalist, to protect the Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority Councillor Jane Kenyon-Miller from being exposed over a six or seven figure fraud she and her husband pulled off on the United States Government and offences they have committed in the UK.  Full report here:  Belvedere Computers Inc.

This has not resulted in any action by the Chief Constable to arrest Madgwick or Pearson, other than a letter confirming there is no arrest warrant issued in the United States for the Kenyon-Millers, but ignoring the criminal offences they have committed under UK legislation.  Report here.  In the letter, Chief Constable Jones refers to Councillor Kenyon Miller as “Jane”, even though his letter relates to a criminal investigation being undertaken into Councillor Kenyon-Miller by his Force.  An example perhaps of “inappropriate association with criminals”.

It is certainly an example of criminals being protected from prosecution and of “higher-ranking officers implicated in corruption or other unethical behaviour”.

Chief Constable Jones is currently refusing to:

1. Respond to correspondence over various allegations of corruption in his force.

2. Release the transcript of an interview under caution at Fulford Road Police Station on the 26th of July 2012, when corrupt police officers from North Yorkshire Police tried to frame me for harassment of Councillor Kenyon-Miller to assist her in escaping justice over a fraud on the United States Government and offences she has committed in the UK.  Thus ensuring it can’t be given in evidence against the officers concerned.

3. Release the statement of Councillor Kenyon-Miller supporting her harassment complaint.  Thus ensuring it can’t be given in evidence against the officers concerned.

4. Release the report by Detective Superintendent Pearson into the theft of electronic goods from 74 Rosedale Avenue, which it is alleged was facilitated by police officers from North Yorkshire Police.

5. Release statements alleged to have been made by five other people supporting the false allegation of harassment made against me, which was used as a pretext to threaten me with arrest on behalf of Councillor Kenyon-Miller.

6. Direct Deputy Chief Constable Madgwick to retract the threat to arrest me for my pursuit of the Savile, Jaconelli and Kenyon-Miller investigations, even though the Crown Prosecution Service has ruled that there is no case to answer.

7. Restore the terms of reference of the investigation being conducted by Staffordshire Police, which were drafted by North Yorkshire Police to restricted coverage of all of the issues surrounding the conduct of North Yorkshire Police Officers.

This type of corruption where the Police simply refuse to respond to evidence or initiate a rigorous investigation is called stonewalling.  Hence the title of the article.  Chief Constable Jones and his team are masters of it, which is just as well, because North Yorkshire Police has a lot to stonewall about:

• Police complicity in the Scarborough child prostitution and grooming ring

• Police complicity in protecting Peter Jaconelli and his ring.

• Police complicity in protecting Savile.

• Missing intelligence on paedophiles.

• Councillor Jane Kenyon-Miller and the Belvedere Computers Inc fraud

• Deputy Chief Constable Madgwick’s threats to arrest journalists that continued to comment on North Yorkshire Police, even though the comment was accurate and in the public interest.

• Detective Superintendent Heather Pearson’s bungled arrest operation at the request of Councillor Kenyon-Miller, whom she had reasonable suspicion had committed a criminal offence in the UK.

• Why North Yorkshire Police deployed a team consisting of the Deputy Chief Constable, Force Solicitor, Detective Superintendent Heather Pearson, two of the most experienced Detectives on the Force, specialist Counsel and the Crown Prosecution Service, to investigate a harassment case normally handled by a Constable, initiated by the Chair of the Police Authority to assist in concealing a fraud on the United States Government.  They appear to have acted as Councillor Kenyon-Miller’s private security force.

• Detective Superintendent Heather Pearson’s demands that articles on Belvedere Comuters Inc were removed from the Internet.

• Chief Officers expenses and payments for hobbies.

North Yorkshire Police was responsible for the six most important failures to arrest Savile. These were:

1. The failure by Police Officers that served in Scarborough and Whitby to arrest Jaconelli – although his offending was common knowledge in Scarborough going back to the 1950’s which would surely have led the Police to Savile.

2. The failure to arrest Savile as a result of allegations, made by witnesses to the NYE, that Scarborough Police had received about Savile going back to the 1970’s.

3. The failure to properly investigate information it now admits it received from a 15-year-old girl in 2002 regarding Savile.

4. The failure of North Yorkshire Police to investigate allegations about Jaconelli it received in December 2008 and January 2009.

5. The failure to pass on the intelligence held on Savile to Surrey Police in 2007, instead giving him a clean bill of health, which ensured the failure of the Surrey investigation.

6. The failure to pass on intelligence to the Metropolitan Police Operation Yewtree in 2012, on Savile and Jaconelli.

This consistent failure led to misery for thousands of children over many years, as Jaconelli and Savile committed rape, abused children and enticed them into prostitution, with the full knowledge of Scarborough Police.

The North Yorks Enquirer has found that, as with the Rochdale and Rotherham sexual abuse of children scandals, where the police and Council failed to act and  threatened those investigating the abuse, when faced with the exposure of misconduct which could be embarrassing, North Yorkshire Police and Scarborough Council reacted in exactly the same way.

Organised crime such as the Jaconelli ring can only exist with the acquiescence of corrupt Police Officers.  Part of being a Chief Police Officer is accepting that sometimes a colleague lets the side down and that as a Chief Police Officer your duty is to take action against them  On two occasions in my career as a Chartered Accountant I have had to investigate colleagues for fraud.  Investigating a colleague is a horrible situation, but it has to be faced up to.

The old policy of concealing misconduct by stonewalling complaints to protect the reputation of the Force is unacceptable in modern policing.