Piers Morgan’s criminality: The Met Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards prodded into action

Neligan’s response came the day after I sent an email  to Theresa May informing her of Morgan’s criminal behaviour and the failure of the Met to investigate it . (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/operation-eleveden-and-piers-morgans-criminality-the-home-secretary-brought-into-play/).

The DPS’  response looks like a very hastily cobbled together  piece written simply to cover the backs of Neligan and his department because of the inordinate delay in responding to me.  Much of the text was  taken from my previous correspondence with Elevden, the CPS and the DPS. It is largely a cut and [paste job.

The rejection of the complaints is farcically thin. All Neligan does is baldly assert that there is no misconduct or grounds to investigate in the cases of Morgan and Edwards. In the case of D-Supt Jeff Curtis  he tosses aside the fact that Curtis did not interview Morgan and Edwards.

I shall be appealing and will post that appeal here.

I have written a further email to the Home Secretary Theresa May in response to Neligan’s emailhttps://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/operation-eleveden-and-piers-morgans-criminality-the-home-secretary-brought-into-play/

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Directorate of Professional Standards

 Empress State Building

22nd Floor

Lillie Road

West Brompton

London

SW6 1TR

Telephone: 0207 230 1212

Email:

Your ref:

Our ref: PC455/14

Date:   10/03/14

The outcome of your complaint against police.

 

(by e-mail)

Dear Mr. Henderson,

Thank you for all the information you have provided concerning your complaints about Operation Elveden. We take all complaints seriously and I am grateful to you for bringing this matter to our attention.

In your latest e-mail, you explained that you had made the following criminal allegations to Operation Elveden:

1. That Piers Morgan when editor of the Mirror obtained information from a Met Officer(s) in circumstances which can only have been illegal. The letter from Morgan to the PCC which I have supplied to Elveden and which you have a copy of in facsimile conclusively proves this.

2. That Jeff Edwards when chief crime reporter for the Daily Mirror illegally received information from Met Officer(s).  Morgan’s letter plus the story printed by the Daily Mirror about me conclusively prove Edwards received such information.  

 3. That both Morgan and Edwards  committed perjury when questioned under oath about receiving information illegally from the police. I provided Operation Elveden with the relevant Leveson transcripts.

On 13 June 2013, you received the following response to those allegations from Detective Inspector Daniel Smith:

Dear Mr Henderson,

I write in relation to the allegations you made following your contact with DC Rooke in January of this year. I have reviewed the matters raised by you in this, and subsequent communications, with DC Rooke.

I understand that the matters raised by you relate to an article published in 1997 and that the matter was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service (Complaints Investigation Bureau). The matter was referred to the Police Complaints Authority in 1999.

I understand that there is no new evidence or information available and as a result I have decided that no investigation will be conducted into the points raised by you.In relation to the Perjury allegation, having read the transcripts provided, I do not believe there is evidence that shows an offence has been committed. As a consequence this allegation will not be investigated.

Yours sincerely,

 

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith

You subsequently complained about this decision and as the Professional Standards Champion (PSC) with responsibility for Operation Elveden, I was asked to deal with that complaint. The legislation surrounding complaints against the police requires that the relevant force (referred to as the Appropriate Authority) considers the outcome of any complaint investigation. A PSC for a particular department is the senior officer that has been delegated by the Commissioner to act as the Appropriate Authority for that department.

I have now reviewed all the correspondence you have submitted, including the clarification of your complaint that you supplied to Chief Inspector Dunn, and the police records that relate to this matter. I am now in a position to inform you of the outcome of my enquiries. The police do not have to record or investigate an allegation of crime if there is evidence that no crime has taken place. The information you supplied to Operation Elveden was properly considered, as is evidenced by their correspondence with you in which they seek to clarify matters and identify any new evidence or information. The matter was then properly referred to one of the Detective Inspectors leading the operation to consider whether further investigation was required.

Detective Inspector Smith, as he explained in his e-mail to you, decided that the first two of your allegations had previously been recorded and investigated and as there was no new evidence or information, no further investigation was justified. He also reviewed your allegation of perjury and found that following initial investigation (a review of the relevant transcripts) there was evidence to indicate that in fact no crime had been committed.  He therefore decided that this allegation did not need to be recorded or investigated. His actions and decisions comply with the Home Office National Crime Recording Standards and the MPS Crime Management Policy. These are decisions he had the authority to make and they were made through the appropriate process, in line with the relevant policy and guidance and were made after giving all the information due consideration.

As Appropriate Authority, I am required to consider the findings and conclusions of complaint investigations to determine:

whether the report should be referred to the Director of Prosecutions (CPS);

• • whether or not any person to whose conduct the investigation relates to has a case to answer in respect of misconduct, gross misconduct or no case to answer;
• whether or not any such person’s performance is unsatisfactory;
  • what action, if any, we will take in respect of the matters dealt with in the report; and
• what other action (if any) we will take in respect of these matters.

After considering these points I am satisfied the outcome does not need to be referred to the CPS.

I can also inform you that it has been determined there has not been a breach of the professional standards by any officer. Furthermore, I have conducted review of the officers’ performance, which I found to be satisfactory. This means that no further action will be taken in respect of your complaint.

In addition to the points above it has also been considered whether you received an appropriate level of service from the Metropolitan Police. This means how you were dealt with overall and not just by any one individual. After reviewing the circumstances of your complaint the Chief Inspector (CST) is satisfied there has not been a failure identified in the way we dealt with you. Your complaint is therefore not upheld.

We are grateful to you for raising this issue and giving us the opportunity to review the actions of those concerned. It is always useful to receive feedback on how our officers and staff perform; as an organisation it allows us to learn and develop and to identify ways we can improve our service in the future.

If you do not agree with the outcome of this investigation or its findings you can appeal to the Appeals Unit of the Directorate of Professional Standards. There is no right of appeal to the IPCC. You have 28 days from the day after the date of this letter to make your appeal. The 28^th day is 07/04/2014. Appeals received after 28 days may not be allowed unless there are exceptional circumstances.

You can appeal on any one of the following grounds (you will see that not all of these necessarily apply to your case); that you:

have not been adequately informed about the findings of the investigation or any proposals resulting from the report;

disagree with the findings of the investigation including whether a person has a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct;

disagree with the police proposals for action – or lack of them – in light of the report;

disagree with the decision not to refer the report to the CPS.

 If you do decide to appeal, this is the address to write to:

DPS Appeals Unit,

Metropolitan Police Service,

22nd Floor ESB,

Lillie Road,

London

SW6 1TR

 Or by email to ‘Appeals@met.police.uk’

Further information about how to appeal can be found on the IPCC website:

www.ipcc.gov.uk

You also made a fourth allegation:

4. That Det Supt Jeff Curtis committed misconduct in a public office and perverted the course of justice by claiming he had investigated my complaints against Morgan and Edwards when the reality was that he failed to conduct any investigation at all, and that  despite having Morgan’s letter to the PCC and the Mirror article about me.  Curtis eventually shamefacedly admitted to me in a phone call that he had  not spoken to anyone at the Mirror including Morgan and Edwards and consequently there had been no  investigation of the Mirror’s accounts  and other records to see whether any money had been paid. Curtis failed to investigate Morgan and Edwards despite his promise to do so in an interview with me which I recorded. I have supplied Eleveden with a copy of that recording so you can hear  him making the promise on which he reneged.  

This amounts to a complaint about Detective Superintendent Jeff Curtis, who retired in 2003. This complaint appears to arise from events that occurred between 1997 and 1999, some 14 years ago. I also note that the PCA were involved and decided that no further investigation was required. There is a statutory time limit of 12 months in which a complaint can be made and as a result, unless you can provide reasonable grounds to account for this time delay, an application to “disapply” your complaint will be submitted. This means that although your complaint has been recorded, no further action will be taken.

If you disagree with this, you need to provide further information to show why your complaint is not out of time. You need to do this within 28 days from the day following the date of this letter. The 28th day is XX/XX/XX. Please provide your representations in writing to the postal or e-mail address shown above.

Any representations you make will be taken into account before a final decision is made as to whether your complaint will be investigated or not. If no representations are made or your representations are deemed to be insufficient, then your complaint will be disapplied.

If your complaint is disapplied then no further action will be taken with it. Further information about disapplications can be found on the IPCC website: www.ipcc.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Name   Tim Neligan

Detective Chief Inspector

DPS SI