NYP Custody Scandal Revisited

NYP Custody Scandal Revisited

by TIM HICKS

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Introduction

An article on the North Yorkshire Police (NYP) website on the Angiolini Inquiry attracted my attention recently:

“Angiolini Inquiry update – June 2025

At the end of February, Lady Elish Angiolini published the findings of Part 1 of her two-year inquiry which looked into how off-duty Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens was able to abduct, rape and murder Sarah Everard.

This report provided a detailed look at the failings of the Metropolitan Police, Kent Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, and the lessons which can be drawn from this that can be applied right across policing.

The shock that the public felt when the person responsible for the brutal death of Sarah was confirmed to be a police officer was profound, and has shaken public trust and confidence in policing at its foundations. This was magnified further when we learned that he used the trust she placed in him as a police officer in order to carry out her murder.

North Yorkshire Police 20/06/2025.” (Article here).

The article went on to describe the progress NYP has made in addressing the five out of the sixteen recommendations made by the review led by the Rt Hon Dame Elish Angiolini DBE KC (pictured above), that apply to the Police.

Of these five recommendations, two concern this article. These are:

• Recommendation 1: Approach to investigating indecent exposure.

• Recommendation 15: Reporting by Police Officers and staff of harassment sexual offences and inappropriate behaviour committed by fellow Officers.

The Report on Part 1 of the inquiry can be read here. However, this BBC programme (here) gives an in depth analysis by Dame Angiolini of the failings by three Police Forces that allowed PC Wayne Cousins to remain as a Police Officer, despite multiple warning signs. Which in turn allowed him to go on to abduct, rape and murder Ms Sarah Everard in March 2021. I would encourage all ourPolice readers to watch this programme to understand the number of mistakes that were made by the Police over a sustained period of time. Which led to Ms Everard’s death.

The NYP Custody Scandal

Regular readers will remember that the NYE ran a series of articles exposing sexual offences of Voyeurism by male NYP Custody Officers, who had been observing female detainees while they were in the showers or in a state of undress in the cells. A criminal offence of voyeurism. Here, I quote one of the articles:

“The presence of a male officer in a cell with a woman in a state of undress when there is no need for it is a form of sexual abuse and a despicable abuse of authority. If the detainees were underage, it is paedophilism. The articles further express a personal opinion that male officers that enter cells and gawp at undressed female detainees should be arrested and charged with voyeurism in the normal way, as should the Custody Sergeants who allowed this despicable behaviour to occur.”

Recommendation 1 of the Angiolini Report is:

“At the earliest opportunity, and by September 2024 at the latest, police forces should ensure that they have a specialist policy on investigating all sexual offences, including so-called ‘non-contact’ offences, such as indecent exposure.”

This is a wider definition than the indecent exposure offences that Couzens committed and includes the offences of voyeurism that were committed by NYP Officers against female detainees in NYP Custody suites, which were exposed by the NYE.

Needless to say, no action was taken by NYP to investigate and identify the Custody Officers that committed this offence against female detainees. The concern must be that – as with PC Wayne Couzens – that the relatively minor offence of voyeurism was the beginning of an escalating pattern of offending by these Officers and they could have graduated to more serious offences against women. Their conduct certainly shows that they are unfit to work in custody or with vulnerable women. But no action has been taken and they are probably still serving in NYP, probably as Custody Officers, with access to vulnerable women.

Recommendation 15 of the Angiolini Report is:

With immediate effect, all police forces should take action to understand and confront the barriers that police officers and staff face when reporting sexual offences committed by a person that they work with or in the workplace. This is in order to encourage victims, who are also police officers or police staff, to come forward and submit complaints, as well as to identify and remove those who are not fit for service.

It is deeply concerning that no Custody Officer or Custody Sergeant reported offending colleagues for voyeurism. Worse, no Chief Police Officer has ordered an investigation into these allegations raised by the NYE. They just resolutely refuse to comment.

NYE’s journalism vindicated again

The Jimmy Savile and Peter Jaconelli paedophile scandal and the abuse scandals at Throxenby Hall and Kirklevington Detention Centre are all alleged to have involved Police Officers routinely ignoring sexual offences against children. NYE series of articles here.

This is now the third investigation that has issued findings that support the calls that the NYE has made for these Officers to be prosecuted. The other two were the Baird and da Souza. NYE article here.

However, yet again the NYE‘s journalism has been vindicated, yet again the senior leadership has done nothing and yet again, Police Officers who have committed crimes against women or have acquiesced to crimes being committed against women and youths have gone unpunished.