SHANA GRICE

  Another case the proves that all is not well in the Sussex area with police using resources to chase or hide, alternative agendas

Giles York is the chief constable of Sussex Police taking over from a long chain of chief constables, including Paul Whitehouse, who was finally forced to resign after the Home Secretary insisted that he should go.

THE GUARDIAN - SHANA GRICE

A judge criticised police as he jailed a stalker who murdered his former girlfriend five months after officers gave her a fixed penalty notice for wasting their time with complaints about him.

Mr Justice Green said police jumped to conclusions and stereotyped Shana Grice. The former boyfriend, Michael Lane, was given life with a minimum term of 25 years.

When Grice, 19, had sought help from Sussex police she had received none, Green said. She was found last August, in her bedroom at the Brighton bungalow she shared with two housemates, with her throat slashed.

Lane, 27, had waited until Grice was at home alone. He had then murdered her and set fire to her bedroom. She had decided to rekindle a relationship with her previous partner, Ashley Cooke.

It emerged during the two-week trial at Lewes crown court that police had been told that Lane had pulled Grice’s hair and grabbed her mobile phone last March. No further action was taken against him, and Grice received a penalty for not disclosing she had been in a relationship with him.

“In other words, she was treated as the wrongdoer and having committed a criminal offence, Michael Lane was treated as the victim,” Green said during sentencing. “There was seemingly no appreciation on the part of those investigating that a young woman in a sexual relationship with a man could at one and the same time be vulnerable and at risk of serious harm. The police jumped to conclusions and Shana was stereotyped.”

The judge said the incident meant police treated all further complaints by Grice with scepticism. When further stalking incidents took place, she felt her complaints would not be taken seriously by the police, he said.

Green also said police left Lane feeling that they would not act if he continued his “obsessive stalking”.

Grice’s parents, Sharon Grice and Richard Green, said their daughter would still be alive if Sussex police had acted on her complaints. In a statement following sentencing, they said Lane was a “dangerous and obsessive man” who had shown “arrogance and cowardice” by pleading not guilty.

They said: “In his contemptible defence he sought to blame innocent men for his actions. He compounded this by relying on the wholly inadequate police assessment of risk to Shana to suggest he was no danger to her. We firmly believe Shana would be alive today if Sussex police had acted to protect Shana on the many occasions she complained about Lane, rather than issue her with a fine for wasting police time.”

Sussex police apologised to Grice’s family and referred themselves to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which has launched an inquiry.

Bernie O’Reilly, a deputy chief constable, said: “When we looked at the circumstances leading to Shana’s murder, we felt we may not have done the very best we could.”

The trial had heard that Lane had refused to accept the breakup with Grice and decided no one else could be with her. He told a friend: “She’ll pay for what she’s done.”

In the months before he killed her, he stalked Grice and put a tracker device on her car, receiving notifications via a phone app every time the vehicle moved.

Grice also complained about Lane following her, about her tyres repeatedly being let down, and about receiving heavy-breathing phone calls from withheld numbers.

She was found dead, face down on her bed, in her smoke-filled room by Cooke’s father, Ian Cooke, after colleagues reported that she had failed to go to work.

Lane, a mechanic, claimed he had discovered her body but then left the house in shock. Jurors convicted him of murder after just over two hours of deliberation on Wednesday.

SHADOW CRIME COMMISSIONER, WHISTLEBLOWER

Matt (Mathew) Taylor is a member of the public who is as concerned as some other residents in the East Sussex area that crimes being reported to the Sussex Police are not being investigated properly or at all. The murder of Shana Grice is an example that tends to support Mr Taylor's assertions, however randomly they may have been presented.

BLOWING THE WHISTLE - More protection should be given to whistleblowers by the courts and with changes to stature to ensure that dirt does not just get swept under the carpet. Imagine if it was possible to sweep away evidence of being told and being told about crimes in public, by asking a court to grant an injunction preventing disclosure. Disclosure is a right protected by Article 10, so long as the disclosure is accurate - and we would recommend - supported by documentary proofs. That way any fair minded court abiding by Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, could not be persuaded to part any citizen from his Convention right to blow the whistle. The danger is always that in their frustration as perfectly reasonable moan about lack of justice in Sussex, may stray into a bolstered view, rather than stick adamantly to the facts.

GILES YORK - Is the chief constable of Sussex Police taking over from a long chain of chief constables, including Paul Whitehouse, who was finally forced to resign after the Home Secretary insisted that he should go. Are we in for any surprises after the Grice murder. Should Giles seek to stay to milk the ratepayer for his pension, or should he resign now and let a better man try to put Sussex police in order? The fact is that while Giles is resident, it is unlikely that Sussex police will investigate fraud within Wealden District Council's planning department.

CRIME COMMISSIONER - Is it fair to have a go at Katy for Sussex Police failings, or is it your public duty to report inaction and blow the whistle?

Katy Bourne was elected Crime Commissioner, taking office with an oath to serve the public interest. That is an oath that many are now questioning, where she appears to be serving Sussex Police instead of policing the organisation that has come under such flack for their blatant refusal to investigate so many complaints of malfeasance in public office in a certain Councils that this serious form of fraud and property value manipulation is rampant. If you know about any consents that are being handed out to friends of councillors, or relatives of councillors or council officers, why not blow the whistle.

Don't tell the National Audit Office and don't bother with the Ombudsman or District Auditor, criminal activity like fraud is a matter for Sussex Police and that seems to be a bit of a problem with Giles York at the helm. Because, okay, we know that they will not investigate their chums at Wealden, but surely that is another crime (conspiracy) that Katy should know about. If Sussex police will not investigate Wealden, why do you suppose that is? We know what you are thinking here, could it be that some of the police officers have a deal in place with Wealden's officers to control who gets planning consents and who does not? It's an interesting theory and one that is gathering pace with the discovery of tipped entries in the Declarations of Interest book at Wealden's offices. Talk about make it up as you go along, and worse, change the record later to suit.

The next problem is that from past experience, Katy is unlikely to do anything about it, except perhaps to say that lessons will have to be learned when it is too late and you have lost your property to a neighbour, who then gets the consent that should have been yours many years previously. Give it a try anyway. You never know, Katy may decide that enough is enough.

CONTACT KATY BOURNE

Katy Bourne & Sussex Conservatives

5 Hazelgrove Road

Haywards Heath, RH16 3PH

Email: campaign@katybourne.com
Tel: 0800 023 5793
Twitter: @katybourne

http://www.katybourne.com/

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