Pages

Saturday 19 October 2013

An Inspector calls !






Phew, what a week - that was, although, it won't be over for me til I get this post done !  I've been working on this for a few days, hold onto your hats kids - you are going to like this !

I'm not sure if the family, friends and supporters of the late Sir Jimmy Savile realise just what a God send the publication of the transcripts of Jimmy's interview under caution on the 1st October 2009, have turned out to be for all of us ! 

My last few posts may have been a bit scrappy but I will now produce for your entertainment and information the fiasco that was the reaction ACPO to the realisation that Senior Police Officers had been aware, and actively involved in an investigation  into allegations made against one of the most famous men in Great Britain.  This investigation spanned 29 months,involved EVERY Police Force in the UK as well as selective Local Authority Childrens Services and Charitable bodies !

Emm, no wonder, they all couldn't wait to declare their interest in the matter once MWT et al appeared on our screens on Oct 3rd 2011, but that's just my opinion - let's cut to the chase and weed out FACT from FICTION !

On Tuesday 2nd June 2009 a letter was sent to Sir Jimmy recorded delivery so he will have received this the next day.  The following Monday 8th June an Inspector from West Yorkshire Police made contact with another Inspector at Surrey Police on behalf of Sir Jimmy and in response to that letter.

Let's leave the good 'Inspector 5' there for a wee while shall we, for, up until the point he made that phone call the only worry he might possibly have had in regard to Sir Jimmy and the Friday Morning get together's. might have been - who was going to end up with that chocolate biscuit  - the same one that had been in Jimmy's fridge since Louis met Jimmy in 2000 !

This is what happened as a result of '5's contact 







Ok, now we need to back track and I need to introduce you to the cast involved in the epic that was 'Operation Ornament' - the Police investigation into allegations made against Sir Jimmy in May 2007 !  
Please note, that I would never have bothered reading the report of this investigation had it not been for the release of the transcripts.  Yes, I've seen it before, it was published at the same time as Giving Victims A Voice in January 2013 but, as it was more or less re covered as it were by Levitt, I saw no reason to read every report over and over gain.  However, after witnessing the idiotic reaction by all and sundry to the release of the tapes, I became determined to find out ALL ABOUT THIS OPERATION and those who took part in it.

I became particulary angry  upon re reading the Telegraph article from January wherein the writer described how Jimmy bullied the two lady officers who interviewed him.  I also wondered WHERE they got the details of the interview from NINE MONTHS before the trans were released !

Two lady officers ? goodness, I'd quite forgotten that ! My first reaction to the trans was ; who's Jimmy's friend, my second was who are the officers who are interviewing him and HOW did they come to get there ?

Det Sup Jon Savell's Report provided these answers and moor ! 

Straight away, I found out who interviewed Jimmy, they are referred to as DC 1 and DS 6 - I deliberately leave a pace between the rank and number because of my shock to find that such an important matter was left to officers of such low rank ! I'm not being funny here, when you read the rest of this post, you will know what I mean !

Det Con 1 along with Det Insp 3 are the two officers who largely ran the investigation - it's helpful to have the rank explained as I for one was for a time under the impression that DI3 stood for Det 13 !!

Let's do the timeline then shall we ?

13/5/07  - DC 1 Surrey is contacted by Dorset Police in connection with Ms A who says that she witnessed an incident involving JS at Duncroft School sometime around 1977 to 1979 

From the first contact the SIO (senior invest officer) is Det Inspector 3

17/5/07  - Barnado's confirm that there are no records of any incidents involving Ms A or Ms B- the latter of whom has now been identified

22/7/07 DC 1  - checks Police database including the  Police National Computer and finds nothing on JS 

25/7/07  Supervisory DetSup 8 reviews file suggests No Further Action BUT Det Insp 3 disagrees and tells DC 1 to continue as 'case officer' Det Chief Insp 4 takes 'senior oversight' of case he is DET C I of North Surrey Police

19/9/07 Ms A contacts 'Making connnections' see footnotes later

16/11/07 Ms B corroborates what Ms A has said but will not pursue

20/11/07 - DI 3 meets with childrens services Surrey manager 

22/11/07  - Police note JS only involved with 2 charities (his own !)

6/12/06 another child Services manager concerned that Leeds Police have not been told

18/12/07 JS is created as a 'suspect' on Surrey Police computer in order to max info sharing

10/4/08 Sussex find out about Surrey

29/4/08 West Yorkshire Police are advised about existence of the investigation.

20/5/08 First Gold Group meeting chaired by DIV Commander Chief Sup 7' case is listed as a 'critical incident'



21/5/08 the above meet again -agree that the case stay with North Surrey* with 'appropriate senior officer oversight' from CH Sup 7 but there will be no further gold groups 'at force level'
* North Surrey is recognised as specially trained and experienced in historic sex abuse cases 

 2/6/08 Senior Gold Meeting 
Attended by :

Det Sup 9
DC Insp 10 from major crime investigation Unit
Mr 2  former head of Operation Arundel and Head of major crime review Team
made decision to 'engage with CPS'

 3/6/08 Policy decision made NOT to tell Ms F and Ms B and the Sussex 'victim' about other 'victims' Friends Reunited had no doubt saved them the bother !

5/6/08 - decision made to seek out other Duncroft residents from 1977 - 1979

10/6/08 Decision not to tell charities - also NOT TO TELLFormer STAFF of Duncroft Schools.


 10/6/08 DCI 14 and DI 3 meet senior staff at Childrens Services Surrey

18/6/08 DI 3 updates Det Sup 9

15/7/08 First initial brief with CPS - 'verbal briefing' not put in writing but this was the outcome


  18/8/08 Decision made to formally submit file to CPS and interview Jimmy under caution




But see this :

Savell's Report Notes here that the 'only other Senior Officer Oversight recorded is an update to Det Sup 9 on 8/10/09

So, whilst D Insp 3 continued to supervise Det Cons 1 there was no further Senior Senior Officer involvement with the case until it was effectively over !



Take a breather now guys and gals - Why ? Well, because THEY DID !

DC 1 spent the next few months preparing the file and - wait for it ..... reading Jimmy's books !!! 

Det Insp 3 noted staff shortages for the delay in submitting the file to the CPS on 22/01/09

 But here is where things start to get interesting so WAKE UP !



 And now the fun starts !



Det Cons 1 was told by a Senior Prosecutor that having considered the evidence, there would be NFA taken in the matter and that a Senior Officer should meet with JS, let him know about the allegations and advise him of the outcome !

Here is where people's memories appear to become a bit fuzzy - indeed, the author of the Report refers to the now retired Det Inspector 1's - recall as being - wait for it !

'understandably patchy' he was after all recalling events from 6 years back !!! But note that DI 3 reported to DI 4 the latter agreeing that the eventual decision to interview Jimmy despite CPS advice was a Police one !

So the interview with Sir Jimmy was eventually arranged but not before the entry of Inspector 5 from West Yorkshire Police into the party !

Remember him ?, the no doubt, well meaning friend of Jimmy's who thought he' do a good turn and speak to Surrey Police on 8th June 2009 !




 Read that last sentence again !

Then we had the interview conducted by two relatively low ranking Police Officers with Jimmy in his room at Stoke Mandeville on 1/10/09.

Here is the outcome of the meeting :




 Like me, you may be wondering why Surrey Police bothered to interview Jimmy at all ! They appear to have lost interest in the case by the end of 2008.  Certainly. the most Senior Officers have at least. The fact that for a considerable time, very high ranking Officers are closely involved as are other relevant agencies shows that whilst, they took the matter of the claims made against Jimmy very seriously, the actual investigation however, yielded little !

The questions put to Jimmy were in connection to incidents claimed to have taken place in the latter part of the 70's at two locations, Duncroft and Stoke Mandeville Hospital.  For some reason the Report into the investigation that took place indicates that other allegations had been made against Jimmy 


It seems strange that neither the PNC or the other checks made country wide during the course of this investigation did not bring these allegations to light does it not ?

An Inspector called on Jimmy's behalf in June 2009 - No Detective Inspector bothered to interview him in October 2009.  Surely, such an important task should not have been left to a DC(1) and a DS (6) especially as the former had mixed up the testimonies of the possibly only, two witnesses months before ! There seems to be a lot  of information missing from that period between August 08 and June 3rd 09.  DC 1 appears to have been left to get on with the investigation on her own.  I wonder why DI 3 did not attend ?

The Senior Officers took a back seat after August 2008 - They are all over it now ! 


















 








 













 








 










5 comments:

  1. Historical Investigations can be a complete nightmare.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's all rather baffling but basically it's almost as if the whole thing was going nowhere, but then somebody decided, "Hey, we'd better be *seen* to speak to Jim" - a year or so later.

    Perhaps the long intervening period was occupied by them trying to get more witness/victims or confirmation that the ones they had would agree to testify in court. If they had no testimony, they had no case at all.

    The WYP is involved long after everything seems to be pretty much settled so I cannot see how they affected the investigation at all. It's rather ironic that in order to do their job the cops are expected to inter-communicate but then when they do, the media imply they're "doing favours" somehow.

    Surrey seem to have no affection/affiliation to Savile at all, so I think we can be absolutely certain that if there had been anything at all to make all this "stand up" they would not have hesitated to proceed. They'd already "done" Jonathan King hadn't they [?] so they knew how these things worked.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I got the idea the interview was pretty much to tie up the case. Maybe they just wanted to meet a celebrity! It is annoying reading questions in the press about the soft approach of the interview. Little point in going in hard given they weren't prosecuting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Johnny Timeless
    They seemed pretty "hard" to me, given they knew nothing was actually going to happen!! I was especially intrigued by the way they prised at him about "his Policy". The Press went on and on about that aspect early on. This "Policy" was all part of Spindler's "explanation" as to why everyone was so scared of Jimmy Savile.

    As rabbitaway suggests, this interview, or aspects of it seems to have somehow been leaked to the Telegraph. Spindler seemed very conscious of it too. I guess he would have been expected to be able to access it at least.

    I also wonder why Surrey Police didn't just release it along with the report into Op. Ornament. It's almost Jim's only chance to be heard "on the stand". But folks could only have got to read it after he'd already been hung, drawn and quartered.

    ReplyDelete
  5. part 2 - coming up - our Inspector has not finished his 'call' just yet !

    ReplyDelete