Complaint regarding the handling of an investigation, including threats to life - Metropolitan Police Service, April 2018

In 2013 and 2014, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) conducted an investigation into statements made online by a man who said he wanted help to drug and rape his girlfriend. During this investigation, it was established the target of these statements was actually a relative.

During the investigation, the man was located and interviewed and the case against him was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). However, no further action was taken due to lack of evidence. There is no indication the man’s relative was spoken to as part of this investigation.

Some years later, the man kidnapped two women, including his relative; he sexually assaulted both, seriously injured his relative and killed the other woman. During his criminal trial, his relative also stated he had sexually abused her in the past. Following the trial, the judge for the case wrote a letter to the commissioner of the MPS, questioning whether enough had been done during the investigation in 2013/14.

In addition, the man’s relative made a complaint to us on 5 April 2018, stating MPS officers failed to conduct effective investigations into the man’s crimes.

During our investigation, we attempted to gather information in relation to the MPS investigations in 2013 and 2014. However, much of this information did not appear to be located where it should have been on MPS systems, this included interview tapes and the physical case file.

We made attempts to gather the relevant information from other agencies, such as the CPS, magistrate’s courts and safeguarding services. We took statements from police officers who had taken part in the search for relevant documents. Our investigators attended a number of MPS storage units to carry out physical searches. However, some of the documents remain unfound.

During our investigation there was an indication two former police officers – who had since retired from the MPS – may have behaved in a manner which would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings. Both provided a written response to a number of allegations put to them. These included:

Failure to carry out a search – We were of the opinion the decision not to execute the search warrant was an error. When officers arrived at the property, which was linked to the IP address used to post threatening messages online, the man’s former partner said he no longer lived there. In our opinion, a search of the address should have been performed in order to establish this fact.

Failure to arrest the man – As three months had passed between the officers going to the man’s last known address and locating him, in our opinion there would have been little to be gained as it is likely he would have been made aware of the officers visiting his home address and destroyed any evidence. Therefore, in our opinion, the voluntary interview that the suspect had attended was sufficient.

Failure to follow lines of enquiry – During his interview, the man told the officer that it was not him who had made the statement online, but another man, who had admitted this to him. He also told the officers he had sold his computer, and so they were unable to check this. There was no evidence that the officer followed any lines of enquiry to check the man’s account was correct.

Failure to maintain satisfactory record keeping for the investigation – The documents relating to the 2013/14 investigation that were recovered had very little in the way of rationale for decisions made by the officer throughout the investigation. As the case file was not been located it was not possible to comment on whether the rationales made by the officer were satisfactory or not.

Failure to safeguard the complainant during or following the investigation – The man’s relative was not spoken to at the time. No paperwork was located in regard to a threat to life notice being issued or considered and no referral was made to other agencies to ensure her safeguarding. In our opinion, the complainant was not given the opportunity to have facts about the potential threat posed to her.

Failure to supervise the investigation – The officer’s supervisor did not challenge the decision not to perform the search, did not ensure lines of enquiry were followed and did not safeguard the complainant.

The officer and their supervisor were no longer serving officers with the MPS when our investigation began. However, we were of the view that, had the officer and their supervisor still been serving, we would have regarded their overall performance as unsatisfactory and asked the MPS to consider a performance plan for both of them.

Based on the difficulties experienced in locating the case file and interview tapes from the 2013/14 investigation, we recommended that the MPS may wish to review their audit process for the movement and storage of exhibits and case files along with any other stored material.

We upheld the man’s relative’s complaint that officers had failed to conduct effective investigations into his crimes, those who were co-accused and associates. In our opinion the evidence suggests the performance of the officers involved in the overt investigation was unsatisfactory.

We did not consider that officers had been negligent in their duties, but that it was a matter of poor performance, and therefore did not uphold that complaint.

We did not uphold the complaint that officers were guilty of misfeasance in a public office. In our opinion, there was no evidence to suggest any officer committed a criminal offence.

We completed our investigation in July 2019.

After reviewing our report, the MPS agreed with our findings.

Regarding the learning highlighted by our investigation, the MPS responded that the processes for recording and retaining material relating to criminal investigations are clearly defined, but agreed that these had not been followed correctly in relation to this particular case. The force advised that, although some of the issues had now been overcome through improved technology, the department should be reminded of their obligations and the processes to follow.