The Bichard Inquiry - Report - Digital Education Resource Archive ...

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1 Contacts, recruitment and vetting – the facts The first section of the report examines the contacts between Humberside Police, Social Services and Huntley from August 1995 to October 1999. An overview 1.1 Huntley had lived for most of his life in the Humberside Police area but there is no record of any contact between him and Humberside Police before August 1995, when he was 20 years old. 1.2 Between August 1995 and July 1999, Huntley came into contact with Humberside Police and/or local social services (Humberside County Council Social Services before 1 April 1996, and North East Lincolnshire Social Services thereafter) in relation to 11 separate incidents involving allegations of criminal offences. One involved burglary and one the non-payment of a fine for not having a television licence. The remaining nine contacts (of which Social Services were aware of five) all involved allegations of sexual offences. Of these: 1.2.1 Four involved allegations of unlawful sexual intercourse with girls under the age of 16. In three of these, the girls concerned were aged 15; in the other, the girl was aged 13. 1.2.2 Four involved allegations of rape. 1.2.3 In between the rape allegations there was an allegation that Huntley had indecently assaulted an 11-year-old girl. 1.3 He was neither convicted nor cautioned in relation to any of these incidents. 1.4 He was summonsed in relation to the burglary offence, and the case went to court after a lengthy delay. However, a decision was taken not to proceed because the prosecuting counsel had concerns about whether the interview of Huntley had complied with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The police officer involved did not, and does not, agree with those concerns. Unusually, for a single count indictment, the charge was left to ‘lie on file’, which meant that the case could not be pursued without the court’s permission. The Bichard Inquiry – Contacts, recruitment and vetting – the facts 23
1.5 Huntley was charged in relation to one of the allegations of rape. The case reached court but did not proceed to trial. It was discontinued on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), following concerns about the complainant’s version of events, which had changed during the investigation. 1.6 On 26 May 1999, the day after he was interviewed about one of the rape allegations, Ian Huntley changed his name by deed poll to ‘Ian Nixon’. On 2 May 2002, he changed it back again to Huntley. 1.7 In October 2001, he applied for a job as a caretaker at Soham Village College, which he was offered, and accepted, in mid-November 2001. This led to the police check, or vetting process, described later in this report, in which Education Personnel Management Ltd (EPM) were involved. 1.8 On 26 November 2001, Huntley started working at the school before the vetting was completed and the result known. In the first week of January 2002, the check produced a negative result – that is, it did not reveal any of the incidents in which he had come to the notice of Humberside Police. In all probability, Cambridgeshire Constabulary, who managed the police checks, never asked Humberside for any information on Huntley, but even if they had, a search still would not have revealed anything about the allegations of sexual offences. 1.9 Huntley had been in a relationship with Maxine Carr since at least July 1999. By November 2001, she was living with him. 1.10 By Easter 2002, Maxine Carr was working at St Andrew’s Church of England Primary School in Soham. 1.11 From the summer term of 2002, she was the temporary classroom assistant to Year 5, which covered the class that Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells attended. They therefore came into contact with Huntley through knowing Maxine Carr, rather than as a result of his employment at Soham Village College. 1.12 On 4 August 2002, Huntley murdered Jessica and Holly. Dealing with the contacts as they happened How Humberside Police and/or Social Services handled the 11 contacts with Huntley 1.13 Before dealing with the contacts, I need to outline, in brief, what record-keeping and intelligence systems were available to the police and social services. There is more detail about the record-keeping systems in Appendix 3 and the Glossary has a brief explanation of the various acronyms. 1.14 Humberside Police had four separate information technology (IT) systems for maintaining relevant records: 24 The Bichard Inquiry – Contacts, recruitment and vetting – the facts
Page 1 and 2: The Bichard Inquiry Report A Public
Page 3: © Parliamentary copyright 2004 The
Page 6 and 7: The recruitment and vetting process
Page 8 and 9: Introduction and summary by Sir Mic
Page 10 and 11: Humberside might well have been dif
Page 12 and 13: conducted by them that it is unlike
Page 14 and 15: contribute to the failure of record
Page 16 and 17: Nonetheless, I have already said th
Page 18 and 19: Referral of sexual offences against
Page 20 and 21: Recommendations for action A nation
Page 22 and 23: • age or power imbalances; • ov
Page 24: Checking processes 22 The Registere
Page 27 and 28: the basis of the majority of the do
Page 29: 2 Contacts, recruitment and vetting
Page 33 and 34: eferrals to Social Services or the
Page 35 and 36: 1.37 One version of Form 547 was fi
Page 37 and 38: ‘... 1 there must be evidence of
Page 39 and 40: Case to ‘lie on file’ 1.66 When
Page 41 and 42: 1.83 There are real doubts that she
Page 43 and 44: 1.94 It appears from a Social Servi
Page 45 and 46: 1.106.5 EF’s mother went to Pelha
Page 47 and 48: A joint police and Social Services
Page 49 and 50: Contact 6 allegation: rape involvin
Page 51 and 52: 1.163 DS Hibbitt told the Inquiry t
Page 53 and 54: 1.182 It then sets out a number of
Page 55 and 56: 1.197 According to Social Services
Page 57 and 58: met on several occasions, were very
Page 59 and 60: ‘Ian Kevin HUNTLEY aka NIXON 31/0
Page 61 and 62: 1.243 It is significant that the ap
Page 63 and 64: and Selection Procedures: vetting t
Page 65 and 66: Mr Roger Walker, an employee of EPM
Page 67 and 68: 1.282 In his response to the Inquir
Page 69 and 70: (to start in July). The cost of bri
Page 71 and 72: Changing the system - the ‘batch
Page 73 and 74: ‘Comments’ field on the databas
Page 75 and 76: 1.326 There is continuing work to d
Page 77 and 78: • AS refers to an ‘arrest summo
Page 79 and 80: eceived) to 24 December 2001 (the d
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What would have been revealed if th
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2 Contacts, recruitment and vettin
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2.10.2 DS Hibbitt and DC Chatha (a
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2.25 In reality, Form 839 would, i
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2.37 The fact that it was not used
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Social Services had no systems - ma
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2.60 A system that automatically d
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• whether or not the alleged abus
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was that the computer gave the bail
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Constabulary, who produced the repo
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the continuation of those failures.
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2.108 He also accepted that the ti
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adopting the National Strategy for
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ecurring. They kept recurring witho
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2.144.4 Why was the letter from Mr
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25 I cannot, therefore, state that
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2.162 The errors and failings I ha
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3 National systems and structure -
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equiring compliance with the releva
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Review, inspection and the strategi
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3.39 While ACPO guidance aims to he
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A record within 24 hours of arrest
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Information management The National
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3.74.3 ACPO Crime Committee’s pol
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3.86 An application for a criminal
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3.97 In December 2003, the Home Off
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4.4 Having € said that, guidance
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the wealth of information held, but
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4.31 € Although CRISP (see paragr
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Recommendations Investment should b
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4.44 € The new Code should seek t
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Recommendations A Code of Practice
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4.54 € If these arrangements were
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Recommendation HMIC should develop,
Page 151 and 152:
Recommendation All posts, including
Page 153 and 154:
Checking applicants’ addresses 4.
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Continuing problems 4.95 € Althou
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4.110 € It is unsurprising that t
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Benefits of a central register 4.12
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Third-party information 4.133 € T
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Glossary 4x4 system - a subjective
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CRISP - Cross Regional Information
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National Policing Plan - a document
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Appendix 1 Areas of interest to the
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Appendix 2 Evidence received by the
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Organisation Name Oral (O) Written
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Organisations that provided written
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3 The job of inputting information
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• the ‘general information’ s
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CIS Crime 28 The second CIS applica
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Social Services records 42 Social S
Page 187 and 188:
the Committee of Inquiry into the S
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sexual, violent or drug offences wo
Page 191 and 192:
29 Under the Enhanced Disclosure re
Page 193 and 194:
Vetting procedures 50 In some count
Page 196:
Index A full printed index is inclu
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