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Archived Transcript for 10 January 2002:
Pages 1 to 50
1
1 Thursday, 10th January 2002
2 (1.30 pm)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Could
4 I just say something before we begin, please.
5 As some of you know, because you were present,
6 earlier today we conducted a video conference with
7 Mr Manning. The tape of the interview will, in
8 accordance with our usual procedures, be programmed into
9 our witness schedule. It will be shown in a few days'
10 time in this room, and then the contents of the tape
11 will become evidence to this public Inquiry.
12 However, I have received notice from a broadcasting
13 organisation that they wish to make an application that
14 they should be given a copy of the tape after it becomes
15 evidence to the Inquiry. In these circumstances I will
16 set aside time to hear oral submissions from that
17 organisation and from any other interested party that
18 wishes to make a submission on this matter. We will
19 schedule that in in a few days' time. I already have
20 the benefit of Mr Manning's views on the subject, but of
21 course I must hear the whole application before reaching
22 any decision. Thank you very much indeed. Mr Garnham.
23 MR GARNHAM: Thank you, sir. Our next witness is
24 Philip Wheeler.
25 DCI PHILIP WHEELER (sworn)
2
1 MR GARNHAM: Please have a seat, Mr Wheeler. Would you give
2 the Inquiry your full name, please.
3 DCI WHEELER: My full name is Philip Leslie Wheeler and I am
4 a Detective Chief Inspector currently attached to
5 Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Cambridge.
6 MR GARNHAM: Your professional address?
7 DCI WHEELER: Block 6, Milton Road, Cambridge.
8 MR GARNHAM: I think it is right, Mr Wheeler, that you
9 joined the Met in 1979?
10 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, sir.
11 MR GARNHAM: Promoted to Sergeant in 1983?
12 DCI WHEELER: That is correct.
13 MR GARNHAM: And Inspector in 1990?
14 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, sir.
15 MR GARNHAM: You became a Detective Inspector in 1996 when
16 you headed Camden Child Protection Team?
17 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, sir.
18 MR GARNHAM: In 1999 promoted to DCI, Detective Chief
19 Inspector, attached to the Serious Crime Group at
20 Hendon?
21 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, sir.
22 MR GARNHAM: That was I think at the time part of the North
23 West Area Crime Operational Command Unit?
24 DCI WHEELER: That is correct.
25 MR GARNHAM: I will return to your role or roles during 1999
3
1 in a moment. Can I first ask you a little about the
2 management structure for child protection work in the
3 Met. It is right, is it not, that the management
4 structure changed in the early part of the year 2000?
5 DCI WHEELER: That is correct sir, yes. SO5 was formed in
6 2000.
7 MR GARNHAM: What was it that prompted that change?
8 DCI WHEELER: Partly I think the events that we are all here
9 to talk about today, partly the death of
10 Victoria Climbie and partly the need to change Child
11 Protection Procedures.
12 MR GARNHAM: How long did it take to put those changes into
13 effect?
14 DCI WHEELER: Probably from about January to July, I would
15 say. January/February we are talking about putting
16 changes to the Child Protection Procedures from January
17 2000 and SO5 I think was actually formed in July 2000.
18 MR GARNHAM: Thank you.
19 Sir, our LiveNote screen has just gone down. I do
20 not know whether we are alone in that. Whether we are
21 or not, I wonder whether somebody can assist in
22 re-establishing the link, please.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Let us pause. I suspect you are alone.
24 In any event, we cannot have it, Mr Garnham. (Pause).
25 MR GARNHAM: I can continue in the meantime and we can go
4
1 back and correct our own record later. We are happy for
2 that, sir.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: I am happy to wait.
4 MR GARNHAM: I am content with that, sir, if you are.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
6 MR GARNHAM: Mr Wheeler, before April 2000, so during the
7 period with which this Inquiry is primarily concerned,
8 you tell us that there were two parallel management
9 structures, as I understand it.
10 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: One was concerned with policy training and
12 guidance.
13 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: The other was concerned with day-to-day line
15 management.
16 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
17 MR GARNHAM: As I understand your written evidence,
18 day-to-day line management was the responsibility of the
19 Crime OCU.
20 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, yes.
21 MR GARNHAM: Which part of the Met was responsible for the
22 first chain of command that you talk about, the policy
23 training guidance?
24 DCI WHEELER: Well, that was the Senior Management Team, or
25 the team at the Yard who met monthly under -- at the
5
1 time it would have been Commander Kendrick and it would
2 have been the Area DCIs or superintendents who met
3 monthly to decide on policy as a Senior Management Team
4 if you like for child protection -- senior supervisors
5 meeting I think it was actually called.
6 MR GARNHAM: So this was managed Constabulary-wide, was it?
7 DCI WHEELER: No, that was Met-wide.
8 MR GARNHAM: Whereas the other chain of management is
9 devolved to the areas, this portfolio of responsibility
10 for training, guidance and the like is dealt with across
11 the Met by a single directive?
12 DCI WHEELER: For official training, yes. For the actual
13 training of officers on the ground, as it were, the
14 continuation training, there would have been a joint
15 responsibility. The people at the Yard would have been
16 responsible for talking about continuation training, but
17 the people like myself on the ground would have been
18 responsible for putting in systems for training, for
19 child protection teams that we were managing.
20 MR GARNHAM: I am trying to understand how, in the period we
21 are concerned with, 1999, those two management strands
22 meshed together. Can you help us with that?
23 DCI WHEELER: They meshed together in that the DCIs of the
24 areas, all the other DCIs anyway -- I did not go to the
25 senior management -- to the senior supervisors' meeting,
6
1 the superintendent went on our area, but they would all
2 go to the senior supervisors' meeting and then discuss
3 major policy to do with child protection.
4 MR GARNHAM: Then issue directions to the areas?
5 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
6 MR GARNHAM: Within their area of responsibility?
7 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
8 MR GARNHAM: I see. At the time, 1999, Commander Kendrick
9 had that portfolio, did he?
10 DCI WHEELER: As far as I remember. I think he retired
11 shortly after 1999 but that was his portfolio I think,
12 then I think it went to Mr Griffiths.
13 MR GARNHAM: April 2000, two months after Victoria's death,
14 you joined the new SO5 Child Protection Team OCU, is
15 that right?
16 DCI WHEELER: That is correct sir, yes.
17 MR GARNHAM: In what way was the management structure
18 different after that?
19 DCI WHEELER: It was different in that SO5 became its own
20 OCU. It was completely to do with child protection. It
21 was a much better idea that SO5 would have its own
22 management structure, its own chief superintendent in
23 charge of child protection throughout the Met and it was
24 a much better organisational structure, if you like.
25 There were not the two differing management structures
7
1 for child protection.
2 MR GARNHAM: Apart from the elimination of those two
3 management chains, what other improvements were effected
4 by this chain to an SO5?
5 DCI WHEELER: The whole status of child protection was
6 raised, I think. It was -- child protection in the
7 past, and I have seen it on your website, that people
8 have mentioned it was a Cinderella department and it
9 was, it was a Cinderella department. It became much
10 higher profile, higher status. I would like to say that
11 we immediately started to get the resources but we did
12 not, but I think plans are afoot to get SO5 and child
13 protection. It was just things were much tighter and
14 child protection was getting -- given the priority it
15 deserved, I think.
16 MR GARNHAM: So a more efficient, streamlined management
17 structure?
18 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: And higher status for child protection?
20 DCI WHEELER: That is correct. For example --
21 MR GARNHAM: Anything else?
22 DCI WHEELER: For example the officers of child protection
23 were given detective status which really they should
24 have been because they were investigating high level
25 crime.
8
1 MR GARNHAM: I wanted to ask you about that and perhaps now
2 is convenient.
3 What is the significance in the change of title?
4 DCI WHEELER: Simply that the status of the child protection
5 officers as PCs, they deserved higher status because
6 they were involved in investigating very serious crime,
7 rapes against children, sometimes murders against
8 children, and it was always felt and I always felt they
9 should get detective status with the commensurate
10 training.
11 MR GARNHAM: Is detective status in the Met higher than the
12 status enjoyed by uniformed officers?
13 DCI WHEELER: That is a moot point and I think it is a point
14 of debate. Uniformed officers would say yes, and
15 members of the public who do not understand the
16 structure would say yes, if you asked them, you were
17 promoted to the CID from uniform. We talk about being
18 put back into uniform from CID but really the ranks are
19 the same. If you are a DC you are a constable. If PC
20 you are a constable as well.
21 MR GARNHAM: Quite. What I am trying to understand is why
22 it is that detectives have a greater status than
23 ordinary uniformed officers.
24 DCI WHEELER: In terms of this type of crime, their training
25 is better. Normally their training is better, and moves
9
1 are afoot -- although I am not with SO5 anymore -- to
2 make the training a lot better of child protection
3 officers.
4 MR GARNHAM: That should be the substance of the difference,
5 should it not; the better training, not the different
6 title?
7 DCI WHEELER: Both should go together. It is no good just
8 changing the title.
9 MR GARNHAM: That was what was happening, was it not, before
10 the creation of SO5; that child protection officers were
11 being given the title of Detective without the
12 commensurate training?
13 DCI WHEELER: No, they were not. They were not given the
14 title of Detective, it is only after SO5 was formed that
15 they became -- that they were given the title of
16 Detective. The officers that I commanded, for example
17 at Camden, were mostly PCs. In fact, I do not think
18 I had a DC at all.
19 MR GARNHAM: Were both DI Anderson and DI Howard detectives
20 by training?
21 DCI WHEELER: DI Anderson was a career detective.
22 MR GARNHAM: What about DI Howard?
23 DCI WHEELER: DI Howard was a very good street uniformed
24 officer.
25 MR GARNHAM: Then he got the job of DI, in charge of a child
10
1 protection team. He had not had detective training, had
2 he?
3 DCI WHEELER: As far as I know, no, he had not.
4 MR GARNHAM: How is it then he is called Detective
5 Inspector?
6 DCI WHEELER: That was the tradition at the time, but he
7 would have sat a board -- or he may not have sat
8 a board. Certainly when I moved from complaints
9 investigation to child protection work I took a fully
10 constituted detectives board and met the competencies to
11 be transferred into the detective branch. But I was not
12 trained as a detective.
13 MR GARNHAM: I am wondering whether Howard's appointment as
14 DI is indicative of a tendency to give that title to
15 officers before the creation of SO5, even if they had
16 not had the requisite training?
17 DCI WHEELER: It probably was. The idea was that we would
18 try or the Metropolitan Police would try to get
19 detectives throughout the branch, the whole child
20 protection branch and it succeeded at the DI level in
21 some respect and it succeeded a little bit in the teams,
22 but detectives were reluctant to come into child
23 protection work.
24 MR GARNHAM: One can see the merit in trying to achieve
25 that. What I am struggling to understand at the moment
11
1 is what the merit is in appointing a uniformed officer
2 to inspect his post in charge of a CPT then calling him
3 Detective Inspector when he has had nothing of the
4 training, if it is anything other than cosmetic.
5 DCI WHEELER: I suppose it was cosmetic but you went out --
6 if you had any sense as a Detective Inspector you went
7 out and sought the training.
8 MR GARNHAM: Well, you might.
9 DCI WHEELER: If it was there, yes.
10 MR GARNHAM: If it was there and you had the initiative and
11 the time and the inclination.
12 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
13 MR GARNHAM: What I am at the moment not understanding is
14 what the Met were doing making officers, who have not
15 been trained as detectives, detective inspectors.
16 DCI WHEELER: I cannot really answer that. That was what
17 the policy was. I took aboard. Detective Inspector
18 Howard -- I do not know whether Detective Inspector
19 Howard took aboard -- I know certainly DI Anderson took
20 aboard because he took the board at the same time as me.
21 Dave Howard came along later but that was what the
22 policy was and that is what we called ourselves. We
23 were detective inspectors; we were in charge of a
24 criminal investigation branch which was a child
25 protection team.
12
1 MR GARNHAM: Can I ask you a little bit about your job,
2 please?
3 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
4 MR GARNHAM: You tell us in paragraph 1.3 that from February
5 1999 when you were promoted to DCI you had a number of
6 roles.
7 DCI WHEELER: Yes, sir.
8 MR GARNHAM: Your main job was as deputy to the informant
9 registrar?
10 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: You had other roles, including responsibility
12 for the firearms inquiry team, quality assurance unit,
13 management support unit, the garage man, the stores man
14 and training?
15 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
16 MR GARNHAM: You also had responsibility in respect of child
17 protection teams?
18 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: In that regard you would be the senior
20 investigating officer in serious cases?
21 DCI WHEELER: I was meant to be. In the end -- that was the
22 original policy that I would be, but in the end it
23 turned out that I did not have an actual team to deal
24 with murders. I dealt with one murder in March of 1999,
25 which was a suspicious death in fact, Operation Wilonia,
13
1 and I used the child protection teams to do that. But
2 after that it became obvious that really we could not
3 use child protection teams anymore because it was
4 putting too much stress on them to deal with murders at
5 that level. I did not have a team and therefore I did
6 not get too involved in dealing with the investigation
7 into child deaths. I would have liked to have done
8 because that is what I quite enjoyed, in a perverse way.
9 MR GARNHAM: So the SIO role that you had rather fell away?
10 DCI WHEELER: No, I was still SIO in cases of children's
11 homes inquiries. In Camden I think I was dealing with
12 three of those at the time, but the role of SIO in
13 murders was not, if you like, developed and it was --
14 I was trained on homes, I was trained as a senior
15 investigating officer, I took the management of serious
16 crimes course. So I had the training but I did not have
17 any staff with which to say, well go and take this
18 statement or do that. So that part of the role fell
19 away.
20 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. You had some responsibility, some
21 line manager responsibility for the child protection
22 teams?
23 DCI WHEELER: Yes. That was part of the responsibilities
24 that I was given. My main responsibility that I would
25 stress was dealing with informants and --
14
1 MR GARNHAM: I understand that. What were you told was to
2 be the nature of your line management responsibility for
3 CPTs?
4 DCI WHEELER: I cannot remember really being told too much
5 at all. I took over from a Detective Chief Inspector
6 David Brown who was moving to the review team and then
7 retired. I took over basically his responsibilities
8 which were to deal with informants and covert operations
9 and all the files that came through him. So his role
10 was partly to do with the informant or mainly to do --
11 I would say 95 per cent to do with informants and then
12 the child protection role was tagged on at the end.
13 I would just like --
14 MR GARNHAM: You were not told much about the extent of your
15 duties as line manager for CPTs?
16 DCI WHEELER: Not really, I would not say.
17 MR GARNHAM: How did you know what you were supposed to do
18 then? Did you have a job description?
19 DCI WHEELER: I asked for a job description, looked at the
20 job description but the job description that I saw bore
21 no relation to the jobs I was actually doing. By the
22 time I asked for a job description the roles that I had
23 had, as opposed to the roles that Dave Brown had had,
24 multiplied and I asked for a job description and it bore
25 no relation. It was worthless, so I asked for another
15
1 one could be done.
2 MR GARNHAM: How did you know what you were supposed to do?
3 DCI WHEELER: It was sitting next to Nellie, I would say --
4 MR GARNHAM: It was sitting next to ...?
5 DCI WHEELER: Nellie. It is an old training phrase
6 Mr Garnham.
7 MR GARNHAM: Picking up on the job?
8 DCI WHEELER: You sit next to the DCI who has the job
9 already and you learn from him. In fact I picked up in
10 a few weeks the informant registrar work that I had to
11 do --
12 MR GARNHAM: What did you learn sitting next to Nellie as to
13 your responsibility to CPTs?
14 DCI WHEELER: I learned that it was very minimal, because
15 the actual DCI that I took over from, as he told me when
16 I was taking over the job from him, had not had the time
17 to go and supervise, deal with, work with CPTs because
18 most of his time was dealt with informants and the files
19 that came through and covert requests and all the other
20 things that the Area DCI job entailed.
21 MR GARNHAM: Help me a little with this. I am not quite
22 sure I understand the position. You get promoted to
23 DCI?
24 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: You discover the sort of jobs you are supposed
16
1 to do by picking it up from your predecessor?
2 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
3 MR GARNHAM: You discover that one of those tasks is a line
4 management responsibility of some sort for CPTs?
5 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
6 MR GARNHAM: CPTs is an area you have a particular interest
7 in because you have been Inspector in charge of Camden
8 CPT?
9 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
10 MR GARNHAM: But you are not certain, from sitting next to
11 Nellie, exactly what the nature and extent of your
12 duties as line manager are in that regard; yes?
13 DCI WHEELER: Well, I was in some respects because as
14 Dave Brown had told me, there was very little that he
15 could do in terms of supervision or working with the
16 child protection teams.
17 MR GARNHAM: Who was the operational line manager then for
18 the CPTs?
19 DCI WHEELER: The operational line manager I suppose would
20 have been me, the Area DCI and before me it was
21 Dave Brown.
22 MR GARNHAM: That certainly is what those beneath you in the
23 structure appear to think. DI Anderson told us that he
24 regarded you as line manager, although he said in
25 somewhat vague terms it has to be said, he thought you
17
1 had no direct operational responsibility and DI Howard
2 said that he regarded you as his sole line manager.
3 DCI WHEELER: I would not disagree with that. What I would
4 disagree with is in terms of how much involvement that
5 I could do whilst doing the informant job and all the
6 other things. But in terms of line management, I met
7 with the CPTs monthly, as did Detective Superintendent
8 Akers, and listened to what their difficulties were and
9 gave advice where we could. The files came through me
10 as well. The paperwork came through me, the APA
11 responsibility was mine, but in terms of supervision,
12 the amount of supervision that I could do was minimal
13 because of the actual hands-on work that I had to do as
14 deputy to the registrar as well as training and all the
15 other responsibilities.
16 Dave Brown had found that, Ken Rutland before him
17 had found that and Alan Findell had found that. Their
18 involvement in child protection traditionally was
19 minimal and low in terms of going and visiting and
20 supervising.
21 MR GARNHAM: You are answerable to Ms Akers, I think.
22 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: She tells us in her statement -- paragraph 8 in
24 volume 4 at page 012.503, sir -- that you had
25 responsibility for operational matters with regard to
18
1 CPTs.
2 DCI WHEELER: Ostensibly, yes. If you looked at
3 a management structure and there was a management
4 structure flowchart, indeed I did. But if you looked at
5 the actual responsibilities that I had, I could not pay
6 more than minimal attention to child protection because
7 of dealing with the work that I had.
8 I will give you an example of a comparison, if you
9 like. On Central Area, the person who dealt with the
10 job that I was dealing with was a DCI who had an AO
11 supporting him for less boroughs. So there were two
12 people doing that job on Central Area. Then there was
13 a DCI doing the supervision of child protection teams.
14 Then there was a personnel officer doing the supervision
15 of training and training policy. So that is
16 a comparison that I would make; that the jobs that I had
17 on another area were being dealt with by four people.
18 MR GARNHAM: With respect, Mr Wheeler, you are confusing two
19 different issues, are you not? I am trying to
20 understand at the moment what your responsibilities
21 were; you are explaining the difficulties in carrying
22 them out.
23 DCI WHEELER: I would hope that you expect me to explain
24 that.
25 MR GARNHAM: When I ask you to I will, but for the moment
19
1 I am trying to identify what the responsibilities are.
2 Do you accept that you had operational line management
3 responsibilities for the CPTs in your area?
4 DCI WHEELER: In terms of the management structure that
5 existed, I would say so, but with the codicil that it
6 was really impossible for me to carry out the
7 supervision that was expected. I took over from the DCI
8 who told me that he could not do the responsibilities
9 that he had done -- that he was being asked to do
10 either.
11 MR GARNHAM: So the position we have is that you had these
12 line management responsibilities but because of the
13 other tasks on your plate you were not able to do them
14 properly?
15 DCI WHEELER: I was not able to do them to the best of my
16 satisfaction, to the quality that I would expect that
17 I would wish to do.
18 MR GARNHAM: Were you able to do them properly, in your
19 view?
20 DCI WHEELER: I was not able to do the child protection work
21 properly. I did the best that I could. In terms of the
22 informant work I concentrated most of my time on that
23 and I did that properly.
24 MR GARNHAM: I am asking for the moment about CP work, child
25 protection work only. You would agree, this Inquiry
20
1 should understand from you, should it, that the position
2 in 1999 was that there was nobody with a line management
3 responsibility able properly to discharge that job?
4 DCI WHEELER: I would agree with that. I would certainly
5 agree with that. The DCI before me was not even trained
6 on CRIS computers so could not supervise CRIS computers.
7 MR GARNHAM: It means that we have these CPTs in your area
8 and there were either six or seven.
9 DCI WHEELER: There were six at the beginning of the year
10 and seven at the end.
11 MR GARNHAM: We have these six or seven CPTs answerable
12 internally to an inspector?
13 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: But with no properly functioning line
15 management chain above them?
16 DCI WHEELER: I would not say properly functioning. The
17 structures were in place but the actual time that the
18 line manager, i.e. me, could commit to going and
19 supervising them, advising them, visiting them, was
20 minimal because of the other things that I was doing.
21 MR GARNHAM: That is why I said "properly functioning".
22 There was a structure on paper there but it was not
23 properly functioning because the person who had the job
24 was too busy because of all the other jobs he had been
25 given.
21
1 DCI WHEELER: I would agree with that, yes.
2 MR GARNHAM: Standing back from that for a moment, it is
3 a fairly extraordinary picture you are painting, is it
4 not? We have child protection teams staffed not as you
5 would have liked them to have been staffed at the time,
6 and not as the intention is now to staff them with
7 detectives, but staffed often with uniformed officers
8 acting in a detective role, answerable to a DCI who does
9 not have the time that is necessary properly to manage
10 them?
11 DCI WHEELER: That is what the situation was, sir, and when
12 the start of my role as Area DCI -- as I say in my
13 statement I spent two or three months going out and
14 doing an audit of all the informant files on North West
15 Area. I went out and did that and when I came back to
16 the Crime OCU in the evenings, I did the Area DCI's job
17 and all the other functions that were there at the time.
18 When I came back to the OCU after doing that informant
19 audit, I saw that the structure of the job that I was
20 doing was flawed.
21 MR GARNHAM: I will ask you about some of the memos you
22 wrote on that subject in a moment but I want to make
23 sure I understand what the problems is before we look at
24 your suggested solutions.
25 This structural deficiency, as I suggest it is,
22
1 manifested itself in very real everyday ways, did it
2 not, in that you were responsible for conducting
3 appraisals of Howard and Anderson?
4 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
5 MR GARNHAM: Howard told us that he made four appointments
6 during 1999 to see you to have his appraisal done. Were
7 you aware he said that?
8 DCI WHEELER: I am aware of that. I saw it on the
9 transcript sir.
10 MR GARNHAM: Is it true?
11 DCI WHEELER: No.
12 MR GARNHAM: He did not make those appointments?
13 DCI WHEELER: No, not at all. If you give me two minutes
14 to explain and tell you what actually happened, I will
15 do so. The appraisals were a feature of meetings of
16 monthly child protection meetings that we had.
17 MR GARNHAM: The team meetings?
18 DCI WHEELER: The actual DI meetings. Every month on North
19 West Area we had DI meetings. The appraisals was
20 a part --
21 MR GARNHAM: Those are the ones at Bushey Sports Club?
22 DCI WHEELER: At Bushey Sports Club that Detective
23 Superintendent Akers chaired and I chaired if she was
24 not there. Every month we had that meeting. Appraisals
25 was a standing agenda item. When I took over as DCI
23
1 appraisals were outstanding in the firearms inquiry
2 team, they were outstanding in child protection. They
3 were outstanding in every single thing that I took over.
4 In fact, I am fed up with taking over teams where
5 appraisals are outstanding but that is by the bye.
6 Detective Superintendent Akers was quite hot on
7 wanting to do the appraisals and getting those finished
8 and so was I. I am a member of the Chartered Institute
9 of Personal Development. Appraisals are very important
10 to me and I get them done.
11 What happened was that we were set the task or I was
12 set the task of doing all the appraisals for the
13 inspectors. I called them all in and I did all the
14 appraisals. I called Dave Howard in, he brought his
15 evidence to me about his appraisal. We discussed who
16 should do it.
17 Although I could do Detective Inspector Anderson's
18 appraisal and I agreed to do that because I had worked
19 with him throughout that year and I knew what he was up
20 to, we decided I could not do Dave Howard's appraisal
21 because I had not worked with him. He had been in
22 Kilburn for a lot of the time and also he had been a DI
23 as a child protection DI.
24 So the agreement that we came to was that
25 Dave Howard would go and see Dave Brown and Glen Alison,
24
1 the DCI at Kilburn, and he would have his year's APA
2 that had not been done for the year before because that
3 one had not been done, he would have that one done then
4 I would do his appraisal the next February.
5 I took over in February 1999. Dave Howard's APA was
6 not actually due from me until February 2000.
7 MR GARNHAM: APA, Annual Performance Appraisal?
8 DCI WHEELER: Yes. So it was not actually due until 2000,
9 so really there was no need for me to have four meetings
10 with him at all and really I do not know where that
11 figure comes out of the air.
12 MR GARNHAM: What about Andersons'?
13 DCI WHEELER: Can I finish the Howard one? There was no
14 reason whatsoever that we would have scheduled four
15 meetings to discuss APAs. If you look -- and I have it
16 in there -- if you look at the minutes of the managers'
17 meeting in I think February 2000 you see the only
18 outstanding APA for DIs in CPT is Dave Howard's and it
19 was because of that, it was because of the agreement
20 that we had made that I would do it in February 2000 and
21 that was the only reason that his APA was outstanding.
22 There were not four meetings at any time for me
23 to -- if we had had four meetings he would have brought
24 that up at the appraisal section at the DIs' meeting.
25 MR GARNHAM: I think what he was saying was not that there
25
1 were four meetings but he made four appointments in
2 order to have his appraisal done --
3 DCI WHEELER: I would say Mr Garnham he must produce the
4 diary that said I had four appointments with him. There
5 were no four appointments. We had that first meeting
6 very soon after I took over as Area DCI. We had that
7 talk about what we would do, the strategy we would
8 engage. Every other appraisal was done by me. The
9 reason that that one was not done was because it was not
10 due to be done by me until February 2000. When February
11 2000 came, all of this happened and I was told then not
12 to do Dave Howard's APA.
13 MR GARNHAM: Did you have to be chased to do Anderson's?
14 DCI WHEELER: No, not at all.
15 MR GARNHAM: Help me then with a note in one of the minutes
16 of meetings. Volume 33A, please, page 42. This is the
17 minutes of the meeting on 16th June. It is the
18 section 7 "Annual Appraisals" on page 42 I would like
19 your help with. The first entry:
20 "DSU Akers ran through a list of APAs which are
21 overdue or due for each of the CPTs. She mentioned that
22 DI Anderson's APA would be completed by DCI Wheeler."
23 Is that normal that they are recited in that way?
24 DCI WHEELER: The appraisals were discussed by the DIs and
25 every meeting that we had we would talk about our
26
1 outstanding appraisals that needed to be done by the DIs
2 on their own officers. In the minutes for the January
3 meeting, I think it was before I actually became DCI,
4 you will see that Detective Inspector Anderson says,
5 well, that is all very well but the only person -- the
6 person whose APA is longest outstanding is actually
7 mine, i.e. DI Andersons. So therefore he had been
8 waiting to for an APA for probably 18 months or
9 something.
10 By the time I came along in February his APA was
11 outstanding for a long period. I did the strategy of
12 getting through all the APAs of the people that
13 I actually took over. When you look at the number of
14 APAs I had to do -- I had ten direct APAs which is five
15 times more than the number of APAs that any DCI on that
16 OCU had to do. I had ten that I had to directly write.
17 It took me some time to get to them. As I say, for the
18 first three months of my appointment as DCI I was all
19 over North West area looking at informant files and
20 I actually got to them and they were all done before
21 I left that OCU. I did not have to be chased to do any
22 of them. I had to do the firearms inquiry team
23 appraisals. They were done. The CPT appraisals were
24 all done.
25 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. The second way in which I suggest
27
1 the absence of sufficient time for you to devote to CPT
2 work was the number of occasions on which you were able
3 to visit the child protection officers. It was
4 difficult, was it not?
5 DCI WHEELER: I was not expected to visit the child
6 protection officers. It was not part of the role that
7 was handed down to me by Dave Brown. I would disagree
8 that I was expected to visit them. It would have been
9 difficult, yes you are right, in terms of the role that
10 I was performing.
11 MR GARNHAM: If you were a fully functioning line manager
12 with enough time to devote to the proper execution of
13 the duties on such a protection team, would you not have
14 expected to be appearing at the six or seven offices?
15 DCI WHEELER: Without doubt. The structure now with SO5 is
16 that each DCI has five child protection teams under
17 their command and they have a sergeant and they have an
18 AO. I make the point that at this time I had no staff
19 whatsoever.
20 MR GARNHAM: You made that point. We understand that. I am
21 not in this regard criticising you, I am suggesting that
22 this is one of the consequences of the fact that you did
23 not have sufficient time to devote to child protection
24 work, namely that you were not able to visit the CPT
25 offices in the way you would have done if you had that
28
1 time.
2 DCI WHEELER: If I had that time -- again I must point out
3 that I was working ten and twelve hours a day at this
4 time on the informant things and the other things I was
5 doing. If I had the time as a professional child
6 protection detective, which is what I have become
7 I suppose over the last few years, I would have been at
8 those offices and visiting and looking at systems. As
9 it was I could only go to the offices that asked me to
10 go because there was a particular problem and that was
11 Dave Brown's stance as well.
12 Furthermore, I would say I would have been looking
13 at CRIS entries as well, I would have been doing dib
14 samples of CRIS entries. That is the reason I made the
15 point about Dave Brown. Dave Brown, who I took over
16 from as DCI, could not even operate a CRIS because he
17 had never been trained to do that.
18 MR GARNHAM: You anticipated the third respect in which
19 I was going to suggest to you that the way in which the
20 Met had your job structured affected your ability to do
21 what would normally be expected of a line manager, in
22 that you were not able to dip in and out of the CRIS to
23 monitor the way the work was being done?
24 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, and I make the point again
25 that Dave Brown simply had not been trained to do it, so
29
1 therefore in taking over his role I could not have been
2 expected to do that and I did not.
3 MR GARNHAM: This is a pretty unsatisfactory situation as
4 far as the Met is concerned, is it not; that you find
5 yourself in the position where you have line management
6 operational responsibility for six or seven teams but
7 not the time to do the job properly?
8 DCI WHEELER: Well yes, but I would say at the time a lot of
9 officers did not have the time to do the jobs. We were
10 subsumed at that time by the black on black, the Trident
11 murders which had just started and the actual
12 intelligence and informant files that started to come
13 through me and to go through Detective Chief
14 Superintendent Cox escalated. So a lot of us did not
15 have the time to do the best job that we could do.
16 MR GARNHAM: Looking at your position in particular for
17 a moment. The reality is, you would say, the
18 multiplicity of tasks that you had been given meant that
19 you were severely overstretched?
20 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
21 MR GARNHAM: Would it be right to say that there were really
22 two substantive elements to your role? Firstly, and
23 most importantly perhaps, the informant registrar role;
24 yes?
25 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
30
1 MR GARNHAM: That is your principal function?
2 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
3 MR GARNHAM: Secondly, the child protection role. Would you
4 agree that that was your second most important job?
5 DCI WHEELER: To me it was the first important job, however
6 that is because I am a child protection detective by
7 trade. It would have been the first important job, but
8 the other jobs that I had in terms of overseeing
9 training, in terms of the external training budget, in
10 terms of looking at quality assurance, were all jobs
11 that I could only partly look at after the full-time job
12 if you like of actually dealing with informant files,
13 paying informants and being a deputy registrar.
14 MR GARNHAM: Some might say that the other jobs, those two
15 aside, would be the sort of jobs that a competent
16 manager could take on board and manage alongside the
17 other manager tasks.
18 DCI WHEELER: Yes, I would agree. If I could use the
19 analogy of a garage. If you are the manager of the
20 informant system and you have staff, then that is fine.
21 But if you are the actual mechanic who is doing the work
22 in the garage for the informant system, which is what
23 I was doing, typing on the minutes, actually arranging
24 the informants -- the money to be collected, the
25 informants to be met, if you are the mechanic for that
31
1 role then if you are the manager for training locally,
2 and then if you are the regional manager for -- as I was
3 expected to be for seven child protection teams by the
4 end of the year, I think you will understand that really
5 you cannot be the mechanic and do a 40-hour week then
6 manage professionally the other things that you are
7 doing. You can only do it on a part-time basis and that
8 is the difficulty that I had and that is the reason when
9 I came back from doing the audit that I put in a report
10 to the Chief Superintendent saying this role, this job
11 is flawed in actual terms of its structure and the
12 things that a person holding, not just me but the person
13 holding it could do.
14 MR GARNHAM: There is no doubt, is there, that your workload
15 was not so great as to prevent you pursuing a number of
16 other interests you had?
17 DCI WHEELER: You have to tell me what the interests were,
18 sir. I have lots of interests.
19 MR GARNHAM: You were Chair of the Met Historical Society?
20 DCI WHEELER: No, I was not.
21 MR GARNHAM: Did you have a role with the Met Historical
22 Society?
23 DCI WHEELER: I was Secretary of the Metropolitan Police
24 History Society from about 1997 to about 2000, when
25 I resigned.
32
1 MR GARNHAM: You took on a considerable amount of work, did
2 you not, in relation to liaising with Ukrainian police?
3 DCI WHEELER: I visited the Ukrainian police several times,
4 and I have done since 1995, all in annual leave time.
5 I have not liaised with the Ukrainian police in
6 Metropolitan Police time, I have always gone in annual
7 leave time. Where I choose to spend my annual leave is
8 nothing to do with the Metropolitan Police or anybody
9 else.
10 MR GARNHAM: I suspect you are right about that. You also
11 developed a particular interest in shaking baby
12 syndrome.
13 DCI WHEELER: Yes, I did, sir.
14 MR GARNHAM: Did that take up a lot of your time?
15 DCI WHEELER: At this time it did not. It does now. It
16 takes up a lot of my private time. It does not take up
17 a lot of my work time now, although I do get telephone
18 calls from officers all over the country, e-mails from
19 police officers from all over the world. In fact, I had
20 two telephone calls from two of Mr Fox's office the
21 other day from Hampshire.
22 At this time I had not developed any particular
23 research expertise on shaking baby syndrome and it was
24 not taking up any of my time, really. At this time
25 I had done one seminar for officers who had difficulties
33
1 in investigating those cases, at Hendon, and officers
2 from Derby, North Yorkshire, West Midlands came down and
3 we had a seminar and after that I had decided that I did
4 have some expertise and I decided to apply for
5 a research grant from the Home Office.
6 MR GARNHAM: Where did you go?
7 DCI WHEELER: It was given to me to start in April 2000 and
8 therefore I was doing very little work in terms of
9 shaking baby syndrome until April 2000. Now I do lots
10 of work, in my own time in the evenings and at weekends
11 and in my annual leave.
12 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. It is suggested sometimes that
13 senior police officers place considerable premium on
14 a "can do" attitude to their job. It might be said that
15 your attitude was a "cannot do this" attitude "because
16 there is too much on me". Do you think there is
17 anything in that?
18 DCI WHEELER: No sir, I think the people that I have worked
19 with along the years would tell that you I am a very
20 much "can do" police officer. If I can do it then
21 I will do it. In terms of the shaking baby stuff I do,
22 I have advised now, in the last 14 months, on 40 and
23 more shaking baby deaths, murders and serious assaults
24 around this country. I do that in my own time as a "can
25 do" person. I can do that so I do do it. If I can do
34
1 it, if I have the time to do something, as a police
2 officer, then I will do it.
3 MR GARNHAM: But you found yourself unable to do what you
4 regarded as the full range of line manager
5 responsibilities for CPTs during 1999?
6 DCI WHEELER: I did indeed and I saw that as soon -- I tell
7 you again: as soon as I came back from doing the
8 informant audit I saw that I was unable to fulfil the
9 role that I would have wanted to and I put that down on
10 paper to say, this particular job, the structure of it,
11 I have just done a diploma in police management, I knew
12 the structure of the job was wrong, it did not have
13 enough support staff, therefore I reported that and said
14 unless you give me more staff I cannot perform the roles
15 that you are asking me to do.
16 MR GARNHAM: Let us have a look at some of the reports you
17 wrote on that subject. You refer in paragraph 1.3 of
18 your statement to three reports.
19 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: Can I make sure that I have identified them
21 correctly? I would rather you did not look at the
22 documents you have in front of you. I will show them to
23 you. The first thing I want to do is make sure I have
24 identified correctly the three reports.
25 DCI WHEELER: Yes, sir.
35
1 MR GARNHAM: Could you have volumes 45 and 36, please.
2 Volume 45, page 163 first. That is a report incorrectly
3 dated I think 15th January. That is the print date, is
4 it not?
5 DCI WHEELER: That is actually the print date from the
6 computers.
7 MR GARNHAM: We will come back to look at the substance in
8 the moment. That is the first report, is it not?
9 DCI WHEELER: That is the first report. I think so. Let me
10 just check, sir. It is written in May of 1999.
11 MR GARNHAM: The second one I think is the next document,
12 45/166.
13 DCI WHEELER: That is the one regarding the attachment of
14 a lot of different roles to the DCI's post as a result
15 of Hillingdon being merged into --
16 MR GARNHAM: That is the second report and the third is in
17 volume 36, the one beside you, at page 138.
18 Is that the third one?
19 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: That has identified them. Let us look at them
21 in turn. The first one is volume 45, page 163, signed
22 off by you on 7th May of 1999.
23 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
24 MR GARNHAM: You make a number of points in that and we can
25 read it for ourselves but I am right in thinking, am
36
1 I not, the main point you were making is you thought
2 there should be two further staff attached to your
3 office?
4 DCI WHEELER: I think I made that point towards the end,
5 that is one of the conclusions I make.
6 MR GARNHAM: You suggest a typist could be moved from the
7 CPT at ED. What is ED?
8 DCI WHEELER: ED is Albany Street. That is my old Child
9 Protection Team at Camden, that is where it was based
10 and I suggested she be moved and in order to take away
11 some of the weight from me she was moved and she did
12 decide to apply for a job at the Crime OCU. But shortly
13 after she was appointed there she became the Secretariat
14 secretary and I lost any sort of help that I could from
15 her in terms of that, because she became the
16 Superintendent's secretary.
17 MR GARNHAM: That mention of the Camden CPT secretary aside,
18 there is I think no mention of child protection work in
19 this first report.
20 DCI WHEELER: There is not. I was looking at that the other
21 night. The only reason that I can say that for that is
22 that really my role in child protection blossomed
23 throughout the year and it was my willingness and
24 wanting to get more involved in child protection work
25 that that resulted from. I do not think at that stage
37
1 I was being expected to get that involved in child
2 protection work. I do not think at that stage -- and
3 I cannot remember but I do not think at that stage I was
4 even signing the duty states of the Child Protection
5 Team.
6 MR GARNHAM: What I am asking for is not the reasons but
7 simply to ascertain whether I am correct in thinking
8 that at this stage there is no mention in these reports
9 of your concerns about not having the time to do child
10 protection work.
11 DCI WHEELER: There is not mention of the report -- in that
12 report of not being able to do child protection.
13 MR GARNHAM: Let us look at the second one. That is the
14 implications for the Crime OCU re the Hillingdon move.
15 Do we find anything about CPT work in that?
16 DCI WHEELER: Can I go back to the first one, and you made
17 the point that I have not made the point in the first
18 one about being able to do CPT work. I think the
19 overall tenet in that report is that I could not do the
20 other roles that I was sworn to do, not specifically
21 child protection but other roles, because the structure
22 of the post was wrong.
23 MR GARNHAM: I accept that and you are plainly right about
24 that from reading the letter. It is also correct to say
25 at that stage you are not mentioning child protection
38
1 work?
2 DCI WHEELER: That is correct, yes.
3 MR GARNHAM: The same is true of the second letter, the one
4 of September 1999?
5 DCI WHEELER: Well, the tenet of the second report -- and we
6 call them report, we call them 728, we call them
7 report -- the tenet of the second report is exactly the
8 same. Nobody had scoped, as far as I could see, the
9 effect that moving Hillingdon Borough to the line
10 management of the Crime OCU would have on the various
11 posts. There was no scoping to say, well, it would have
12 an effect on the murder scope. There was no scoping to
13 say movement of CPT and a firearms inquiry team would
14 have an effect on my job. And the tenet of that report
15 is to say, look, nobody has done any work on this. It
16 is going to have a lot of effect on me because the
17 firearms inquiry will blossom, the number of CPT files
18 that come through me will rise, the number of informant
19 files that will come through me will rise.
20 I wrote that report for the Senior Management Team
21 to say, here, this is even more evidence of the fact
22 that I will be under stress in doing the job and I need
23 some more staff to do the job.
24 MR GARNHAM: I can understand that and I am not quarreling
25 with you at all.
39
1 DCI WHEELER: I am not saying you are, sir, I just wanted to
2 get that point across.
3 MR GARNHAM: Well you have. Looking at the third report in
4 volume 36 at page 138. This one is written, we see from
5 a note that somebody has added to the bottom of the last
6 page, written in January 2000.
7 DCI WHEELER: Yes, that is my writing. Again, I wrote that
8 at the end because of the way the printing came out.
9 MR GARNHAM: That is 11 months after you took up the job?
10 DCI WHEELER: That is correct sir, yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: Up to the day before you wrote that memo, is
12 there anywhere a report you sent to any senior officer
13 indicating that you were not able properly to perform
14 the child protection line manager function?
15 DCI WHEELER: There is not a report, but I would have
16 thought there was ample evidence in these reports to say
17 that I was under duress in terms of doing the functions
18 that I could do. I actually say, if you were to read
19 those reports -- and if I can just look at a note that
20 I have made, I say in the first report, May 1998:
21 "Please consider the proposal for two staff to be
22 attached permanently."
23 In the second report, September 1998:
24 "There will be an increase in the traffic through
25 the Area DCI's office merely in terms of informant
40
1 handling and registration therefore staff should be
2 considered to help with this influx. In fact, this
3 particular post should be given its own support staff."
4 And the third one I say:
5 "The role of the Area DCI has grown by default and a
6 willingness of the current incumbent to take on extra
7 tasks. I have increasingly become aware that I am only
8 able to give a small amount of time to any of these
9 roles and therefore the service I can give without
10 affecting performance on other tasks is minimal."
11 And that includes CPT as well as all the other
12 tasks.
13 MR GARNHAM: I am asking you for the moment to look at the
14 position immediately before you wrote that third report.
15 I am right in saying, am I not, that there is nothing in
16 those two reports we have looked at to suggest you were
17 reporting to senior officers that you did not have the
18 time to do your child protection duties?
19 DCI WHEELER: There is not anything in writing but
20 I actually went and saw Mr Cox and told him that I was
21 having difficulties in terms of going around and
22 supervising the child protection teams. I walked into
23 his office, which in the time honoured phrase "the door
24 is always open", and it was, and I walked in and sat
25 down and said simply, "Boss, it is difficult because
41
1 I am doing so many things, I cannot do the child
2 protection stuff that I want to do, that I would like to
3 do as a professional".
4 MR GARNHAM: I am going to ask you about the conversation
5 you had with Cox in a moment.
6 DCI WHEELER: Mr Cox it was, sir.
7 MR GARNHAM: Would you confirm that there was nothing
8 written by you prior to January 2000 indicating that
9 your role was such that you did not have time properly
10 to do the CPT line management job?
11 DCI WHEELER: In terms of naming child protection, I would
12 guess that you are right. But in terms of saying that
13 I could not do the DCI's job as a catch all, as a round
14 robin, I think you would have to say that that was in
15 there.
16 MR GARNHAM: There is a difference between an officer
17 reporting to his seniors that he is simply under too
18 much pressure, talking about his own difficulties,
19 talking about making a report focused on his personal
20 problems with meeting his role on the one hand, and an
21 officer saying there is something seriously wrong with
22 the way the Met has set up line management for child
23 protection work.
24 DCI WHEELER: As I was ipso facto supposedly, as you say, in
25 charge of child protection, then they should work it
42
1 hand in hand. If I am saying that the structure of the
2 DCI's role is wrong and if I am saying all the
3 responsibilities that the DCI -- not me or Dave Brown
4 but the actual post -- if I am saying that the structure
5 is wrong then really it is not a leap of faith to say
6 that I am saying that the structure of their
7 responsibilities to do with child protection teams is
8 wrong.
9 MR GARNHAM: If the woman to whom you were responsible,
10 Ms Akers, was to say she had no idea that you were
11 unable properly to perform your job as line manager for
12 the CPT, can you point to any document that shows she is
13 wrong?
14 DCI WHEELER: I cannot, apart from these three reports I am
15 afraid which were put in to Mr Cox to start with, then
16 they were put into the Senior Management Team in
17 September as a result of the Hillingdon thing, and again
18 to Mr Cox.
19 MR GARNHAM: Tell me about the conversation you had with
20 Mr Cox. When was it? You refer to this in
21 paragraph 1.3 of your statement.
22 DCI WHEELER: It is difficult to remember sir. I cannot
23 remember. I remember walking into his room and having
24 the conversation and saying that there were difficulties
25 in terms of me supervising, properly supervising child
43
1 protection teams. He told me to do the best that
2 I could.
3 MR GARNHAM: You understand why it is important for us to
4 know what it was?
5 DCI WHEELER: Completely. I understand all the questions
6 you have asked me.
7 MR GARNHAM: It is not minuted and we have no written record
8 of it so how are we to work out when it was you made
9 this verbal report to Cox?
10 DCI WHEELER: I cannot work it out. I remember doing it and
11 that is it. You will have to take my word for that.
12 MR GARNHAM: 1999, 2000?
13 DCI WHEELER: It would have been in 1999.
14 MR GARNHAM: The third report you write in January 2000 does
15 mention CPT. It tells us that you had reinstated the
16 CPT managers meetings.
17 DCI WHEELER: In conjunction with Detective Superintendent
18 Akers.
19 MR GARNHAM: You set up training seminars for staff?
20 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
21 MR GARNHAM: That you had been involved as senior
22 investigating officer in a number of children/home
23 cases?
24 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: You go on, at page 139 in the third paragraph
44
1 down, to say:
2 "Unfortunately this role has not been able to be
3 progressed on my part due to the lack of official
4 status."
5 What does that mean?
6 DCI WHEELER: What I was saying there, I guess, is that
7 I was the DCI ostensibly in charge of several child
8 protection teams but I was not actually the DCI who went
9 along to the senior supervisors' meeting at New Scotland
10 Yard.
11 MR GARNHAM: So was it the fact that Akers instead of you
12 went to that senior supervisors' meeting that prevented
13 you progressing the job?
14 DCI WHEELER: Partly that. That was part of the reason.
15 The other part of the reason was because of the other
16 roles that I was undertaking.
17 MR GARNHAM: Why does the fact that she instead of you goes
18 to that particular meeting prevent you progressing this
19 job?
20 DCI WHEELER: It is very difficult, if you do not go to the
21 main supervisors' meeting at New Scotland Yard it is
22 very difficult for you as a DCI to get hold of what the
23 policies are, to get hold of what the feeling for what
24 the development of the role is --
25 MR GARNHAM: Why?
45
1 DCI WHEELER: Because you are not at the meeting.
2 MR GARNHAM: Did you not read the minutes?
3 DCI WHEELER: You can read the minutes. The minutes were
4 not actually sent to me for some time --
5 MR GARNHAM: Where are they kept?
6 DCI WHEELER: Detective Superintendent Akers had them to
7 start with --
8 MR GARNHAM: In her office.
9 DCI WHEELER: Then Detective Superintendent Cox had them in
10 his office.
11 MR GARNHAM: How far is Akers' office from yours?
12 DCI WHEELER: It was about three doors away.
13 MR GARNHAM: So readily available. You could have gone in
14 and read them whenever you wanted?
15 DCI WHEELER: I read the minutes all the time, sir, before
16 the DI's meeting. What I am telling you is that they
17 were not sent to me regularly --
18 MR GARNHAM: So what. That is just bureaucracy, is it not?
19 DCI WHEELER: It is, but I do not see the point you are
20 making.
21 MR GARNHAM: Let me explain it then. You agree that because
22 they were available to you in Akers' office you read
23 them?
24 DCI WHEELER: Yes I did, before the actual meeting.
25 MR GARNHAM: So why does it matter whether or not they are
46
1 sent to you, apart from your status?
2 DCI WHEELER: Again, it is status. From the Yard you are
3 not recognised as the DCI responsible for child
4 protection, if you like.
5 MR GARNHAM: Why does that stop you progressing the job?
6 DCI WHEELER: I am not saying that stopped me progressing
7 the job. The actual meetings -- when you network with
8 people, when you network with other DCIs and
9 superintendents at the Yard, at superintendents'
10 meetings, you pick up things you will develop and use
11 and simply that you will take back to the DIs' meeting.
12 I took one DIs' meeting that had the minutes from the
13 senior supervisors' meeting and I actually found that
14 I could not progress. Detective Superintendent Akers
15 was not there and I was the chair -- I found I could not
16 progress the meeting because the DIs were asking so many
17 questions and I simply said, "Look, I have the minute
18 but I cannot tell you the sense of what was discussed or
19 how it was discussed because I was not there".
20 MR GARNHAM: We have the team meeting minutes with us. With
21 virtually one -- I think two exceptions, Akers is there
22 as well, she chairs it.
23 DCI WHEELER: Detective Superintendent Akers was there at
24 most of them, yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: That being so, you having read the minutes, she
47
1 being there at most of the meetings, why does this lack
2 of official status prevent you progressing the job?
3 DCI WHEELER: I do not think I am making the point about
4 just the lack of official status.
5 MR GARNHAM: Look at the paragraph:
6 "Unfortunately this role is not being able to be
7 progressed on my part due to the lack of official
8 status."
9 How are we to read that?
10 DCI WHEELER: I think you are taking that out of context,
11 I think. The whole report is talking about the
12 difficulties that I have in terms of progressing the
13 child protection role as a supervisor, if you like.
14 I would have liked at that time to have started going to
15 the senior supervisors' meeting. I would not have liked
16 to have gone to it before in some ways because of the
17 volume of work that I had. In terms of at that time,
18 when we were starting to develop systems to look at SO5,
19 I would have liked to have been able to go to the senior
20 supervisors' meeting.
21 MR GARNHAM: I can see that you would have liked it and I
22 can see that there would have been a certain status in
23 attending that meeting at the Yard. What I do not
24 understand is how, in practice, it makes two halfpennies
25 of difference?
48
1 DCI WHEELER: As I said to you, Mr Garnham, it does make
2 a lot of difference because you are in the know, if you
3 like. You are able to be in the circle of knowledge of
4 what is going on, how child protection is going to be
5 progressed within the Metropolitan Police and simply you
6 are well "in the know" if you like.
7 MR GARNHAM: What step that you attempted to take was
8 thwarted by the fact that you were not able to go to
9 these meetings?
10 DCI WHEELER: It is hard to say. Again --
11 MR GARNHAM: Give us a single example of an occasion on
12 which you were not able to advance your job because you
13 were not going to these meetings?
14 DCI WHEELER: I think in terms of advancing the Child
15 Protection Team job it would have helped quite a lot to
16 go to these meetings, simply knowing what the policies
17 were so that I could divulge those and divulge those to
18 the DIs. In lots of ways I could not give the sense of
19 what was happening in terms of child protection to the
20 DIs at the meeting as a result of not going to that
21 senior management meeting.
22 MR GARNHAM: Give us a single example of an occasion when
23 you were not able to take a step that you wanted to take
24 because you were not attending these meetings.
25 DCI WHEELER: I have given you one.
49
1 MR GARNHAM: Which was?
2 DCI WHEELER: I will repeat it again.
3 MR GARNHAM: Do.
4 DCI WHEELER: I was not able to give the sense of meetings
5 and policy, the thoughts of the senior supervisors to
6 DIs as a result of not going to that meeting. I was not
7 in the know, I was not in the loop, so therefore it was
8 difficult to progress things in terms of what the DIs
9 were asking me at the meeting.
10 MR GARNHAM: Give me just one concrete example of what you
11 could not do that you would have liked to have done.
12 DCI WHEELER: Well, if -- I mean, there were probably lots
13 of examples. If I had gone to those meetings maybe
14 I could have been involved in the decisions around
15 training. I am an ex-teacher, I am a trained teacher,
16 maybe I could have been involved around decisions around
17 that.
18 MR GARNHAM: Was there some training that you wanted to
19 introduce that you were prevented from introducing
20 because you were not at these meetings?
21 DCI WHEELER: I cannot say that because I did not go to the
22 meetings, did I?
23 MR GARNHAM: I see. Attending these meetings would have
24 meant further time out of the office for you?
25 DCI WHEELER: It would indeed and I think that is why I did
50
1 not kick up a fuss or say anything about the fact that
2 on the other four areas the DCIs were going to the
3 meetings. It was only on our Area that the detective
4 superintendent went.
5 MR GARNHAM: Did the DCI go from Central Area?
6 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
7 MR GARNHAM: So every other area?
8 DCI WHEELER: Yes.
9 MR GARNHAM: Were you briefed by Akers when she had been to
10 these meetings?
11 DCI WHEELER: Informally briefed, yes. We talked about what
12 had gone on in terms of policies of the senior
13 supervisors. We did talk to each other and communicate.
14 MR GARNHAM: I think it is right to say that the burden of
15 your complaint in this report is set out in your summary
16 section on page 140 in volume 36. You begin by saying:
17 "The responsibilities of the Area DCI post, like
18 Topsy, 'have just growed' over the last year."
19 You tell us that it is difficult for you to sustain
20 the level of supervision and management you were
21 required to undertake.
22 DCI WHEELER: Yes, I would have found it difficult. I only
23 sustained the level of supervision and management that
24 I did through working very long hours and trying to do
25 the job as best I could.
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