The Spectator

Letters: We need career detectives, not fast-tracked officers

We need career detectives

Sir: Your lead article (Trial and error, 29 February) rightly condemns Tom Watson for pressurising police into investigating the spurious allegations of Carl Beech. What should urgently be abandoned is the fast-tracking of police officers into senior positions, and the promotion of uniformed inspectors into detective ranks without them having the necessary experience and training to be effective investigators.

It was well known in junior police circles that Operation Midland was a non-runner virtually from the start, but pressure from on high demanded that the investigation continued. The senior officers responsible for that, lacking detective ability and nous, seem to have heeded Tom Watson’s exhortations and ordered equally inexperienced middle-ranking officers to proceed with the flawed inquiry — with the devastating consequences we are now aware of. Mistakes like this will continue to be made, to our detriment, unless there is a return to career detectives.
Iain Gordon
(Retd Detective Inspector, Met Police)
Banstead, Surrey

The case of Cyril Smith

Sir: The suggestion in your editorial (‘Trial and error’) that Lancashire Constabulary ‘took no action’ after investigating Cyril Smith for child sex offences in 1969 gives a slightly false impression. In fact, after an exhaustive investigation, in 1970 Lancashire Constabulary recommended that Smith be prosecuted. But because of Smith’s status, they felt obliged to seek the views of the DPP, who overruled the recommendation after a cursory consideration of an 80-page dossier of evidence: a decision that Cyril Smith seems to have known about in advance.

While the police can be criticised for failings in other cases, they deserve some credit for wanting to prosecute Smith five decades ago. Lord Steel has justifiably been castigated for his failure in 1979 to consider whether Smith was a fit person to remain in public life.

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