Blunkett suspends Humberside chief
The Home Secretary has announced that he will be using his powers to suspend the Chief Constable of Humberside Police.
Sir Michael Bichard’s report into intelligence failures in vetting Iain Huntley for his post as Soham Village College caretaker was sharply critical of systemic failings in Humberside Police.
“Very serious failings” in Humberside Police were identified in the inquiry, some of which, David Blunkett noted, “which the Chief Constable only became aware of when hearing evidence to the inquiry. Sir Michael finds the lack of awareness of the scale of these failings over such a long period of time to be ‘deeply shocking’.”
Responding to the report in the Commons, Mr Blunkett said that the strength of the criticism meant that he would be using his powers under the amendment of the Police Reform Act 2002 to “require Humberside Police Authority to suspend Mr Westwood as Chief Constable forthwith.”
However, a bizarre situation appears to have arisen, with Mr Westwood claiming he has not been suspended.
He told a press conference that: “I am aware that the Home Secretary has announced that he is asking the police authority to suspend me,”
“They have not done so. Until they decide what their position is I will remain chief constable,”
In addition to the instruction to suspend Mr Westwood, Mr Blunkett has also called on the Police Authority to “consider what steps they should take, having regard to their statutory duty under section six of the 1996 Act to maintain an efficient and effective force. I have asked them to report to me by July 6th.”
Mr Blunkett said that the Government would be accepting the main recommendations of the report and would be acting on them immediately.
As a medium and long term solution to the IT and information sharing deficiencies identified the Government will be introducing the first National Police Intelligence Computer system – entitled ‘IMPACT’.
The introduction of the police local exchange system, which includes a searchable index on all those that information is held, will be brought forward to autumn this year in the interim.
Mr Blunkett pledged that the Government would “urgently consider” the recommendation to create a national register of all those eligible to work with children- having considered its relationship with the Criminal Records Bureau and the possible introduction of identity cards.
A statutory code of practise on intelligence handling will also be introduced, and future appointment panels interviewing applicants for posts working with vulnerable adults and children will be required to have one member trained in identifying those who pose a risk.
