Source · IOPC Learning Case

Police investigation into how a child sustained injuries – Cleveland Police, February 2016

Cleveland Police Ref: 2021/153680 Recommended 20 Dec 2022 Response due 14 Feb 2023

Death and serious injury

Case background

Text published by the IOPC.

In February 2016, Cleveland Police investigated the circumstances surrounding a young child’s injury. The investigation was closed on the basis that there was no evidence of a crime.

In 2017, Cleveland Police investigated another injury on the same child. The investigation was concluded that the injury had been caused by another child and the case was closed.

In 2018, Cleveland Police received a referral regarding a concern for safety in relation to the same child. The police attended a multi-agency meeting and concluded there was no role for the police at that time.

In 2020, Cleveland Police investigated another injury that the child sustained.. The investigation led to a criminal conviction and a Serious Case Review highlighted failings in the multi- agency response to the previous three incidents.

This came to our attention in May 2021.

Our investigation looked at Cleveland Police’s response to each incident. We gathered evidence and interviewed a number of witnesses.

During our investigation, it was established that the incident in 2016, may have been closed before all lines of enquiry had been pursued and that there was no supervision of the decision-making in relation to that incident.

Our investigation revealed that it was possible for the detective in charge of the investigation to also act as the case supervisor.

We completed our investigation in May 2022. We waited for all associated proceedings to be finalised before publishing our findings.

We concluded that the officer had a case to answer for misconduct. A misconduct meeting was held in November 2022 where the legally qualified chair found misconduct and the officer was sanctioned with a written warning.

We carefully considered whether there were any organisational learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

In this case, the investigation has identified organisational learning.

Recommendations and responses

1 indexed

Recommendation 1

Link to recommendation · Accepted

Addressed to: Cleveland Police

Linked bodies: Cleveland Police

IOPC recommendation

The IOPC recommends that Cleveland Police should review the systems in place for supervisory entries onto Occurrence Enquiry Logs (OEL’s) to ensure that in future criminal investigation cases it is not possible for one person to be both the Officer In Charge (OIC) of an investigation and the case supervisor. This follows an IOPC investigation where an officer was able to complete entries as both the OIC and case supervisor. This meant that there was effectively no supervision of the case. The officer who was OIC authorised the closure of a criminal investigation as case supervisor, and the case was closed without all lines of enquiry having been pursued – something that should have been picked up by a supervisor.

Response published by the IOPC

Do you accept the recommendation?

Yes

Accepted action:

I accept the recommendation made from the IOPC investigation and that set out in this document.

The Niche administrator has been contacted to see if it can be embedded in the computer system that a different supervisor to the OIC closes off the criminal investigation. Unfortunately, the Niche system does not have something built in to achieve this electronically.

Therefore, all Heads of Command and a Messages to All will be sent to communicate and reiterate this recommendation.

Criminal cases should always have supervisory oversight and I am confident that this practice is embedded. However, this historical incident has illustrated an example of where this has not occurred, and the new message will ensure the recommendation is captured.

Check the original case on the IOPC website