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Archived Transcript for 11 January 2002:
Pages 1 to 50
1
1 Friday, 11th January 2002
2 (9.30 am)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning Mr Garnham. Ladies and
4 gentlemen, just before we begin the business of today,
5 may I say something about the most regrettable and
6 wholly unacceptable incident yesterday afternoon, not
7 least because I am sure that you all share my concern
8 for the well-being of DCI Wheeler. Understandably
9 DCI Wheeler will not be with us today to continue to
10 give his evidence to this Inquiry. He, like most of us,
11 was shocked by the incident yesterday, although
12 obviously he had the greatest cause to be affected by
13 it. I am very grateful indeed to his colleagues for
14 getting DCI Wheeler to hospital as quickly as possible.
15 His eyes have been irrigated and apart from the loss of
16 some hair I hope that he will recover shortly. I am
17 sure that you would all wish to join with me in sending
18 him our good wishes for a speedy recovery.
19 I am pleased to report that in relation to the
20 incident yesterday afternoon a person has been charged
21 with a number of criminal offences. Clearly I must now
22 allow the law to take its course. Thank you very much.
23 Mr Garnham. Sorry, Ms Boye.
24 MS BOYE: Sir, Mr and Mrs Climbie would like me to say in
25 relation to what happened yesterday, they were not here
2
1 but were very concerned to hear about the incident, and
2 also it was reported this was a relative of theirs.
3 They would like to extend their condolences to the
4 officer and say to everybody that they think this is not
5 the sort of thing they think assists and would like to
6 happen in this Inquiry, and secondly to say this person
7 is not related to them in any way, just to make that
8 clear to everybody this morning.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: I am grateful to you and wonder if you could
10 make it clear to Mr and Mrs Climbie that I take very
11 warmly and well their concerns.
12 MS BOYE: Thank you sir, I will.
13 MR GARNHAM: Sir, in those circumstances we will move to our
14 next witness in the schedule, Ms Akers.
15 CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT SUSAN AKERS (sworn)
16 MR GARNHAM: Good morning.
17 MS AKERS: Good morning.
18 MR GARNHAM: Would you give the Inquiry your full name.
19 MS AKERS: Susan Akers.
20 MR GARNHAM: Your current professional address.
21 MS AKERS: Colindale Police Station, Graham Parkway, London
22 NW9.
23 MR GARNHAM: I think it is right that you have made two
24 statements for this Inquiry. I hope copies have been
25 put in front of you. The first is in volume 4 at
3
1 page 12.501. The second in the same volume,
2 page 12.508. Would you glance through those two
3 statements and confirm that you have signed them both.
4 MS AKERS: Yes I have.
5 MR GARNHAM: Would you also confirm that their contents are
6 true.
7 MS AKERS: Yes, they are.
8 MR GARNHAM: You are presently Borough Commander for the
9 London Borough of Barnet?
10 MS AKERS: That is right.
11 MR GARNHAM: Until January 1999 you were a DCI on the North
12 West Crime Operational Command Unit?
13 MS AKERS: Yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: Between January 1999 and December 1999 you were
15 Detective Superintendent on that unit?
16 MS AKERS: Yes.
17 MR GARNHAM: You took up your current post in Barnet
18 in December of that year?
19 MS AKERS: No, that is not right.
20 MR GARNHAM: Tell us what the position is then please.
21 MS AKERS: In January 2000 I went and worked as staff
22 officer for the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Blair,
23 until March 2001, when I went to Barnet as
24 a superintendent, took over as Borough Commander in May
25 last year.
4
1 MR GARNHAM: In January 1999, on your promotion to Detective
2 Superintendent, you were one of three superintendents
3 I think on the Crime 0CU in the North West Area.
4 MS AKERS: There were two and I was the third. The position
5 of superintendent was created for me.
6 MR GARNHAM: So you are in the position -- there is
7 a translator to Mr and Mrs Climbie. I think you will
8 find you get used to it as we go on but it is necessary
9 for Mr and Mrs Climbie to be able to follow what is
10 happening.
11 MS AKERS: I remember, thank you.
12 MR GARNHAM: I think it is right that Detective
13 Superintendent Camilletti arrived in the area
14 in February 1999.
15 MS AKERS: I cannot be precise about the dates. He arrived
16 after the other two superintendents had left.
17 MR GARNHAM: We know I think that Detective Superintendent
18 Copson arrived in November of that year.
19 MS AKERS: I think he arrived in the summer of that year,
20 earlier than November.
21 MR GARNHAM: When you arrived there were two others. Who
22 were they?
23 MS AKERS: Detective Superintendent Nicholl, David Nicholl,
24 and Chris Brightmore.
25 MR GARNHAM: When did each of those leave?
5
1 MS AKERS: Very shortly after I joined the team. Within
2 weeks but I cannot give an exact date.
3 MR GARNHAM: Was there then a time when you were the only
4 superintendent?
5 MS AKERS: For a short period there was, yes.
6 MR GARNHAM: How long was it then from that point before
7 Camilletti joined you?
8 MS AKERS: A few weeks I would say.
9 MR GARNHAM: Thereafter for much of 1999, certainly the
10 first half, there were two detective superintendents?
11 MS AKERS: That is right.
12 MR GARNHAM: And establishment is three, is it?
13 MS AKERS: Actually a moot point. Mr Cox got authority to
14 increase the establishment to three, to accommodate me,
15 and when the other two left and we were reduced to two,
16 whilst it was aspirational to reach three again I think
17 that he was not given the authority to extend it again
18 to three.
19 MR GARNHAM: Until presumably either the summer or autumn of
20 1999 when Copson arrived?
21 MS AKERS: Yes.
22 MR GARNHAM: Your responsibilities included child protection
23 teams and I think you retained that responsibility, did
24 you not, until November when you handed it over to
25 Copson?
6
1 MS AKERS: Yes, that is right.
2 MR GARNHAM: Throughout the period with which we are
3 concerned you reported directly to Detective Chief
4 Superintendent Cox?
5 MS AKERS: Yes.
6 MR GARNHAM: Child protection teams though were just one of
7 your responsibilities, you had a number of others.
8 MS AKERS: Are we talking about when I first took over?
9 MR GARNHAM: I am thinking for the moment of the period
10 between your arrival on North West Area and November
11 1999.
12 MS AKERS: For when I was the third superintendent for that
13 short period, right at the beginning really, CPTs would
14 have been quite a major part of my work.
15 MR GARNHAM: Even in that period were they your only
16 responsibilities?
17 MS AKERS: They were not at all but they would have
18 formed --
19 MR GARNHAM: A major part?
20 MS AKERS: -- quite a large part of the work. That was the
21 idea and when events took their course and the two other
22 superintendents left --
23 MR GARNHAM: You picked up the parts of their portfolios?
24 MS AKERS: Well, I then went to become what was known as the
25 reactive manager, dealing with major investigations, so
7
1 that was all the murder squads, and retained the CPT but
2 the huge bulk of my work was with the murder squads.
3 MR GARNHAM: Which always busy, was particularly busy at
4 that time?
5 MS AKERS: In 1999 I think we had the highest number of
6 murders then, certainly than before then and I think
7 since as well.
8 MR GARNHAM: Yes.
9 MS AKERS: I think it was something in excess of 70 new
10 major enquiries were taken on in that year.
11 MR GARNHAM: And let us not forget this: all of those are in
12 themselves extremely serious matters, affecting
13 individual people and individual families in many ways
14 as fundamentally as the death of Victoria Climbie
15 affected her family.
16 MS AKERS: Yes, nearly all of them were murders. If they
17 were not murders they were linked rape enquiries or
18 missing person enquiries, so that can be serious.
19 MR GARNHAM: The danger with these sort of enquiries is
20 everybody in this room is focusing on a single important
21 and serious event, but for those who were on the ground
22 dealing with the cases it is one amongst a number of
23 serious important events, and that is right, is it not?
24 MS AKERS: Yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: We have to bear that in mind when we come to
8
1 talk to officers of your rank about the way in which
2 resources are used. Would that be fair?
3 MS AKERS: Yes, that would be very fair.
4 MR GARNHAM: That is not in any way to downplay the
5 importance of for example the Victoria Climbie murder.
6 It is just to recognise that it was sadly for you one
7 amongst a number.
8 MS AKERS: Yes, but it also needs to be mentioned that
9 I actually did not know about Climbie at all until sadly
10 she died, by which time I had left, so whilst it was
11 running it had not ever been brought to my attention.
12 MR GARNHAM: I understood that and phrased the question
13 poorly. It is one amongst an important number of
14 enquiries for you and the team for which you were
15 responsible.
16 MS AKERS: Yes.
17 MR GARNHAM: You tell us that you had responsibility for
18 strategic issues affecting child protection teams. That
19 is paragraph 8 of your statement if you want to see it,
20 your first statement.
21 MS AKERS: Yes.
22 MR GARNHAM: That is right, is it not?
23 MS AKERS: Yes, it is.
24 MR GARNHAM: Your deputy was DCI Wheeler, who you tell us
25 was the immediate line manager of the detective
9
1 inspectors in charge of each of the six or seven teams
2 in your area.
3 MS AKERS: Yes, he was.
4 MR GARNHAM: We on this side of the room were confused at
5 one stage about the number of teams. I think the reason
6 for that is it changed during the course of the year.
7 MS AKERS: It changed during the course of the year and also
8 there is a team that comprises of two boroughs run by
9 one DI which also adds to the confusion. That is Brent
10 and Harrow.
11 MR GARNHAM: Nonetheless, Wheeler, your deputy, is the
12 immediate line manager of the detective inspectors in
13 charge of each of these teams.
14 MS AKERS: Yes.
15 MR GARNHAM: Did he have responsibility for operational
16 matters or was his post in this regard purely in respect
17 of administrative matters?
18 MS AKERS: Both, I would say. He certainly had
19 administrative responsibility and line management
20 responsibility for the DIs.
21 MR GARNHAM: I phrased the question carefully by using the
22 word "purely" because there was some suggestion, and
23 I want to explore this with you, that his responsibility
24 in respect of those CP teams was purely administrative.
25 That is not right, is it?
10
1 MS AKERS: No, that is not right at all. He had line
2 management responsibility and was considered to be the
3 first port of call for the DIs in any difficulties that
4 they had as far as the day-to-day running of their
5 offices were concerned.
6 MR GARNHAM: So they would pick up the telephone and call
7 him, would they, with those sort of matters rather than
8 you?
9 MS AKERS: They should have done, yes. Occasionally they
10 would also pick up the phone to me.
11 MR GARNHAM: Were they free to do that? Were they free to
12 speak to you as much as to him?
13 MS AKERS: In as much as that I encouraged them to make
14 contact with me, yes.
15 MR GARNHAM: I want to make sure I understand that. How
16 does it work for the individual DI running a CP team?
17 Who should he see as the person to whom he takes
18 problems initially?
19 MS AKERS: Initially, as I said earlier, the first port of
20 call would be to Phil Wheeler.
21 MR GARNHAM: So he, the Inspector, should only seek to
22 concern you in the matter if he cannot contact Wheeler
23 or if Wheeler cannot help?
24 MS AKERS: Strictly speaking if you were to look at the
25 management structure that is how it would work.
11
1 MR GARNHAM: I am interested in what happens in practice.
2 MS AKERS: I was probably more relaxed in that in practice,
3 and they would have felt very comfortable about picking
4 up the phone to me if they felt it was a matter that
5 I would either know the answer to or be able to deal
6 with without going through Phil, then I would not have
7 had an objection to that.
8 MR GARNHAM: Did that cause any difficulties in terms of
9 them knowing who the person to whom they should speak
10 was?
11 MS AKERS: I am not aware of that. It was never raised if
12 it was a difficulty.
13 MR GARNHAM: You tell us that you had confidence in
14 Wheeler's competence to carry out that operational role.
15 MS AKERS: Yes, because of his previous experience as a CPT
16 DI himself.
17 MR GARNHAM: He had been at Camden I think.
18 MS AKERS: Yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: Did you retain that confidence in him
20 throughout 1999?
21 MS AKERS: Yes, I did.
22 MR GARNHAM: Would you make a practice of dip sampling the
23 way work was being managed by him in those teams to make
24 sure you knew how things were functioning in practice?
25 MS AKERS: I am not sure what I would have dip sampled, but
12
1 the way that I managed Phil would be to talk to him very
2 regularly about CPT matters and the way that he handled
3 the teams.
4 MR GARNHAM: What I wanted to understand was whether you had
5 any means of discovering whether he was doing his job
6 properly other than talking to him.
7 MS AKERS: The other means of knowing if he was not doing
8 his job properly would have been through DIs alerting me
9 to that fact, if they felt that they were unsupported in
10 any way.
11 MR GARNHAM: And that is a consequence -- perhaps your
12 ability to do that is a consequence of the fact that you
13 were willing for DIs to contact you direct if necessary?
14 MS AKERS: Yes, I think I had a pretty good relationship
15 with the DIs, yes.
16 MR GARNHAM: That of course would be entirely reactive.
17 That would depend on the DIs contacting you. Did you
18 have any way of discovering whether the work was being
19 done, work on the ground was being done properly if they
20 chose not to trouble you with it?
21 MS AKERS: There was no paperwork that I could dip sample,
22 if that is what you mean.
23 MR GARNHAM: I am interested if there is any way of you
24 finding out whether the job on the ground is being done
25 properly.
13
1 MS AKERS: Only by my own knowledge, because I visited and
2 talked to the teams and if Phil had raised anything in
3 our discussions.
4 MR GARNHAM: Are you now content that Wheeler was doing his
5 job competently?
6 MS AKERS: I am disappointed to find out that he did not
7 visit the teams as much as I thought. He certainly
8 visited his old team at Camden, he made himself very
9 busy there and I am disappointed that he did not spend
10 as much time with other CPTs.
11 MR GARNHAM: Yes, and one can see why from a presentational
12 point of view, if none other, there is benefit in an
13 officer as senior as him being seen in the offices where
14 the work is done, but in terms of the actual output from
15 these teams and the way he was managing that, are you
16 now content that he was doing it competently?
17 MS AKERS: In terms of output, could you be more specific?
18 MR GARNHAM: The way in which these six or seven teams were
19 doing their job on the ground and he was managing that,
20 are you now content that he had got a grip on it?
21 MS AKERS: Phil Wheeler was based at Becke House as I was.
22 MR GARNHAM: You were three doors away.
23 MS AKERS: Yes, exactly and there were seven teams at
24 different locations over a large area. I think it is
25 reasonable to expect that by and large the day-to-day
14
1 running of the those teams stops with the DI.
2 MR GARNHAM: Absolutely.
3 MS AKERS: And it would be unreasonable to expect Phil to
4 oversee the running of those seven teams in addition to
5 his other work, so in as much as he managed, he was my
6 deputy and he did certainly a lot of very good work for
7 CPTs, for instance he ran a seminar, full day, and he
8 would take on work and push forward, make sure the
9 training was done, and was supportive to me, in as much
10 as all those things were done, yes I think he did do
11 a reasonable job.
12 MR GARNHAM: But it is pretty elementary management, is it
13 not, that you do not simply set up a team and let it get
14 on with its job unsupervised? There has to be a way by
15 which the managers, senior managers of a team know what
16 is happening on the ground, does there not?
17 MS AKERS: Yes, I think the senior managers of the team did
18 know. I think we did know what was happening on the
19 ground.
20 MR GARNHAM: So when I come to talk to you about the
21 apparent deficiencies at Brent and Haringey you will
22 tell me that you were aware of them, will you?
23 MS AKERS: I am aware of the macro issues. I certainly
24 would not be aware of the weaknesses or deficiencies in
25 individuals on a team in their investigations.
15
1 MR GARNHAM: Who was?
2 MS AKERS: The DIs should have been.
3 MR GARNHAM: What about if the inadequacies lay in the DIs?
4 MS AKERS: Then that would be something that Phil Wheeler is
5 responsible for their line management -- and yes, if you
6 are asking for what I am disappointed in, the fact that
7 their competencies were not perhaps tested as well as
8 they should have been.
9 MR GARNHAM: So the answer to my question is not only that
10 you were disappointed that he was not visiting these
11 offices as much as he should, you were also disappointed
12 that he was not ensuring the competencies of the DIs as
13 he should have done. Is that right?
14 MS AKERS: Yes, I am with the benefit of hindsight. There
15 were a lot of DIs there that were more experienced than
16 he was as well.
17 MR GARNHAM: How is that relevant? Does that mean you do
18 not have to trouble with them?
19 MS AKERS: No, it does not.
20 MR GARNHAM: How is it relevant?
21 MS AKERS: To put it in context, that is all.
22 MR GARNHAM: How is it relevant, that some of them were more
23 experienced than him?
24 MS AKERS: That it would be hard for him to test their
25 competency if they were more competent than him.
16
1 MR GARNHAM: More competent than him. I can see it might be
2 if they were more competent than him, but the fact that
3 they were more experienced than him does not surely
4 prevent him --
5 MS AKERS: Not at all.
6 MR GARNHAM: -- ensuring that they are doing their job
7 properly.
8 MS AKERS: No, it does not.
9 MR GARNHAM: Is it not the case that that was not happening
10 adequately during 1999?
11 MS AKERS: It does appear that way, yes.
12 MR GARNHAM: Is there any sense in which you and Cox were
13 attempting to wean Wheeler off CPT work on the basis
14 that he now had more responsibilities in his portfolio
15 just than CPT?
16 MS AKERS: Absolutely not. That would be the last thing
17 that I would have wanted to do.
18 MR GARNHAM: You valued his CPT experience?
19 MS AKERS: Very much so, yes, CPT was I would have thought
20 the most important part of his portfolio.
21 MR GARNHAM: Were you aware that he believed that he had too
22 much on his plate?
23 MS AKERS: Yes, I was aware that he, because I was aware of
24 that, the report that he wrote, and he would talk about
25 too many administrative tasks.
17
1 MR GARNHAM: He wrote, he told us yesterday, three reports,
2 two during 1999 and one early 2000. Did you see all of
3 those?
4 MS AKERS: I certainly saw the first two.
5 MR GARNHAM: Yes, because by the time of the third you had
6 moved on, had you not?
7 MS AKERS: Certainly that would have been about the time
8 I would have moved on, yes.
9 MR GARNHAM: We can look at the memos if we need to but you
10 were here yesterday and you recall that Mr Wheeler told
11 us that in those first two memos, although he made
12 little reference to CPT work expressly, he was making it
13 clear that the totality of the work he had been given
14 was too much for him without further assistance. Is
15 that right?
16 MS AKERS: Yes, that is.
17 MR GARNHAM: And you knew that?
18 MS AKERS: Yes, I knew that he was complaining about that.
19 MR GARNHAM: Did you accept that what he said was fair
20 comment?
21 MS AKERS: I think what needs to be said is that at that
22 time our particular Crime OCU was so busy that actually
23 Phil Wheeler's work was not as much as every other SIO
24 and detective superintendent and detective chief
25 superintendent's so it needs to be viewed in that
18
1 context. Yes, he was busy but not when you compared
2 with the workload of the other people of his rank on the
3 OCU.
4 MR GARNHAM: You and Mr Cox have provided the Inquiry
5 relatively recently with second statements in which you
6 have addressed provisional criticisms made of you, and
7 you say in your statement that you agree with what
8 Mr Cox says in his second statement.
9 MS AKERS: Yes.
10 MR GARNHAM: He says in this regard that in fact he thought
11 Wheeler was one of the least overemployed members of
12 staff at his rank.
13 MS AKERS: Absolutely, yes, everybody -- that is exactly the
14 point I am making. Everybody was busy but by comparison
15 to others he was the least busy.
16 MR GARNHAM: So when those senior to him received his memo
17 saying in essence "There is too much on my plate,
18 I cannot handle all these administrative tasks and do
19 them properly", what do you do? You are obviously not
20 in a position to say, "Here is another six officers to
21 help you" because they were not available.
22 MS AKERS: No, but where we could do anything to alleviate
23 the problem which did not involve a huge amount of
24 drafting in of new staff, we would do and in that
25 particular instance I think --
19
1 MR GARNHAM: He got a typist from Camden?
2 MS AKERS: Yes, we pulled a typist away from Camden and she
3 assisted all of us actually in some admin support.
4 MR GARNHAM: That did not entirely meet his request, but --
5 maybe you say no, but given that he was the least busy,
6 it would not have been reasonable to meet his request?
7 MS AKERS: He had also I think at that point already drafted
8 in informally Detective Sergeant Mike McDonagh to assist
9 him and I think Mr Cox quite soon after that made that
10 a formal position.
11 MR GARNHAM: And in that regard Wheeler was better off than
12 his predecessor?
13 MS AKERS: Much better off.
14 MR GARNHAM: But the memos do not stop from Wheeler. He
15 continues to complain that he has got too much on his
16 plate. What do you do about it? Here you have
17 a relatively senior officer in charge of an important
18 part of your portfolio who is saying, "I cannot do this
19 job, there is too much on my plate". You give him
20 a little, give him as much as you think reasonable and
21 as much as you can afford and he is still saying
22 "I cannot do this job".
23 MS AKERS: You pointed out yesterday that the things he was
24 saying he cannot do or did not want to have --
25 MR GARNHAM: Was small beer.
20
1 MS AKERS: -- did not relate to child protection and I did
2 not have responsibility for those areas but Mr Cox
3 certainly did look and do what he could to give
4 Phil Wheeler more support in the roles that he had taken
5 on. So he had the typist, he had Mike McDonagh, he had
6 an admin officer who was a retired detective sergeant
7 who was very experienced in dealing with informants'
8 files, who did administration on that for him and
9 created a secretariat. So quite a lot of notice was
10 taken of what Phil said and where resources permitted
11 things were done.
12 MR GARNHAM: I understand that answer and you have made that
13 very clear but it is not quite the point, is it?
14 Wheeler still believed, despite what you had done for
15 him, you and Cox had done for him, that he was not able
16 to do properly all the work he was left with. In
17 a sense it does not matter whether you think that is
18 a reasonable response or whether you think you have done
19 all you can to assist him. He, the man with these
20 responsibilities, ain't doing them because he does not
21 think he can, so they are not getting done.
22 MS AKERS: I can only speak for the child protection teams,
23 things which as you pointed out were not raised in those
24 things. He did not articulate that he was not able to
25 visit CPT teams because of this other work.
21
1 MR GARNHAM: Could you not work that out from the fact that
2 he is three doors away from you?
3 MS AKERS: We would have discussed what to do around all
4 these other matters, and without repeating myself,
5 things were done for him.
6 MR GARNHAM: I do not want to repeat myself but it did not
7 matter because he was still continuing to complain. He
8 was still continuing to indicate that he was not able to
9 do his job properly, as he told us yesterday. The fact
10 that you think he is wrong, the fact that you think if
11 he got on with it and stopped whingeing he might have
12 done a better job of it is irrelevant, because in fact
13 he was not and that is hopeless, is it not?
14 MS AKERS: It does not sound good on paper but you need to
15 understand the way that Phil Wheeler operated and that
16 he was one of the officers who would write things down
17 and spend a lot of time putting pen to paper, whereas
18 other officers tended just to --
19 MR GARNHAM: Get on with it.
20 MS AKERS: -- talk about it and get on with it.
21 MR GARNHAM: There might have been some who would have said
22 on receipt of the third eight-page closely typed memo
23 from Wheeler, "Perhaps if you spent less time writing
24 these memos and more time doing the job there would be
25 less of a problem".
22
1 MS AKERS: And I am quite sure I did probably say that to
2 him.
3 MR GARNHAM: Did you?
4 MS AKERS: Because --
5 MR GARNHAM: Did you say that to him?
6 MS AKERS: I expect I did. I certainly thought it and it
7 was quite likely that I would have said something maybe
8 not quite as harsh as that, but --
9 MR GARNHAM: That was easy for me. I do not actually have
10 to say it.
11 MS AKERS: He would have in my conversations with him anyway
12 been aware that he was not as busy as some of the other
13 SIOs and he needed just to get on with it and we would
14 give him the support where we could.
15 MR GARNHAM: Because he was able to find time for activities
16 outside that, was he not? He had a considerable
17 interest in the Met Historical Society, he had an
18 interest in relation to Ukrainian officers and he took
19 on and developed a role in relation to shaken baby
20 syndrome with the help of a Home Office grant.
21 MS AKERS: I think that was a bit later.
22 MR GARNHAM: It was.
23 MS AKERS: He did do all those things and he was always
24 quick to attend courses and seminars and anything else
25 that could improve his knowledge.
23
1 MR GARNHAM: We will come to this later but one of the
2 things he was particularly keen to do was to attend in
3 your place the senior supervisors' meeting at New
4 Scotland Yard.
5 MS AKERS: And I have to say that is the first I knew of it,
6 when I read this, because he never ever asked me whether
7 he could go instead of me.
8 MR GARNHAM: My point remains though, and you can see what
9 it is, that if the truth is that Wheeler was not doing
10 the job as he should have been, even if his whingeing,
11 to put it harshly, is misplaced, he is still not doing
12 the job and those CPTs are out there without the level
13 of support they should have had and you are responsible
14 for that.
15 MS AKERS: I accept that. I am not sure that I could have
16 made that jump from those two reports that he made to
17 think that the CPTs were seriously at risk.
18 MR GARNHAM: Maybe not, but allied to that the extent to
19 which you enquired as to how they were performing, did
20 you know how well Brent and Haringey CPTs were managing?
21 MS AKERS: I had, I consider, a pretty good grasp of how all
22 the teams functioned through that monthly management
23 meeting that I chaired.
24 MR GARNHAM: We will return to that. Mr Wheeler says that
25 he spoke to Detective Chief Superintendent Cox on the
24
1 subject of his ability properly to perform his line
2 management responsibility, and he says was assured by
3 Cox that his job with the CPTs was purely
4 administrative. First of all, do you know anything
5 about that conversation between the two of them?
6 MS AKERS: No, I find it incredible to believe that Mr Cox
7 would have said that because his view, like my own, was
8 that CPTs needed more than administrative support.
9 MR GARNHAM: Absolutely, and had Wheeler indicated to you
10 that he was labouring under the misapprehension that all
11 the CPTs needed was administrative support, you would
12 have put him right pretty sharpish?
13 MS AKERS: Of course I would, yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: Hearing that evidence now, you must be deeply
15 concerned, because it means the man who was your deputy
16 and who had operational line management responsibilities
17 for these teams was taking the view that his job was
18 purely administrative in that regard?
19 MS AKERS: I do not think he did take that view.
20 MR GARNHAM: You do not, so not only do you doubt that he
21 had that conversation with Cox, you also doubt that he
22 ever believed what he says he was told?
23 MS AKERS: I think what I am suggesting is that he might be
24 looking at it now as that was all his responsibility,
25 but at the time he certainly appeared to do a lot more
25
1 than administrative.
2 MR GARNHAM: It would mean, I cannot see any other
3 alternative, that Mr Wheeler is simply lying when he
4 says that is what he was told by Cox?
5 MS AKERS: Yes, I am afraid it does.
6 MR GARNHAM: It would seem from the evidence we have heard
7 that at least one of the DIs for whom he was
8 responsible, DI Anderson, recognised that Wheeler did
9 not have operational responsibility for (inaudible).
10 Day 17, page 57. That is a trifle disconcerting as
11 well, is it not?
12 MS AKERS: It depends how it is interpreted. I would agree
13 with DI Anderson, and having been in that position
14 myself, that operationally, as far as the running of
15 investigations is concerned, the buck stopped with the
16 DI in charge. If you are looking at line management and
17 day-to-day running of the CPTs then he had line
18 management responsibility, but he could not have
19 operational responsibility because he did not actually
20 have the means to supervise cases.
21 MR GARNHAM: I am sorry, I thought you said earlier in your
22 evidence that you did regard Wheeler as having
23 operational line management responsibility.
24 MS AKERS: In as much as that if there were operational
25 problems that arose, he was the first port of call, but
26
1 I also said that I thought that the investigations, the
2 running of the team stops with the DIs just really
3 because of where they are physically located and the
4 amount of work that DCI Wheeler had, so I am sorry if
5 you were confused about that.
6 MR GARNHAM: You have made it clear now. How then did the
7 Met ensure that the six or seven CPTs were being
8 properly managed and operated in those offices?
9 MS AKERS: Through the meetings, through the visits,
10 through -- and if this was possible DCI Wheeler did have
11 the capability to dip sample investigations, had he had
12 the opportunity in terms of time to do that.
13 MR GARNHAM: He did not dip sample. He did not visit.
14 MS AKERS: And I am disappointed. One of Phil's great
15 strengths is in developing systems and I would have
16 expected that he would have at least ensured that the
17 systems up and running at CPTs had met an adequate
18 standard.
19 MR GARNHAM: Did you make enquiries of him when you
20 supervised him that he had done that?
21 MS AKERS: I probably did not, no.
22 MR GARNHAM: Did you conduct his annual appraisal?
23 MS AKERS: I did one on him but that was pretty soon after
24 he joined and really on the basis of his performance as
25 a DI.
27
1 MR GARNHAM: Somebody should have been appraising him,
2 should they not?
3 MS AKERS: Yes, I had done an appraisal on him.
4 MR GARNHAM: So were enquiries made then to establish what
5 systems he had established in the CP teams?
6 MS AKERS: I do not think that was a specific part of his
7 appraisal.
8 MR GARNHAM: You see, the impression you are leaving me
9 with, and I may be alone in this, is this, that the
10 CP teams scattered around North West Area are regarded
11 as pretty semi-detached, responsible locally to their
12 own DI, with pretty minimal light touch supervision from
13 above and that light touch supervision itself is only
14 very modestly supervised by you.
15 MS AKERS: Just to have a look at the supervision, the ratio
16 of sergeants to constables on CPTs is probably better
17 than in any other part of the organisation, and
18 inspectors to sergeants and constables. They are small,
19 close-knit teams which probably experience more
20 supervision than any other place I can think of.
21 Coupled with that, the CPT DIs have two line
22 managers they can go to. In the first instance
23 Phil Wheeler, who has experience himself of being a DI
24 on CPTs, and myself who also had that experience. We
25 had monthly management meetings and we would meet
28
1 occasionally informally at Becke House when they came
2 over for administrative matters as well. So I would say
3 there was pretty good supervision.
4 MR GARNHAM: Two questions arise out of that answer.
5 Firstly, small closely-knit teams can work either for
6 good or for ill. When they are working well, small
7 close-knit teams are often the best, correct?
8 MS AKERS: Very much so, yes.
9 MR GARNHAM: If they are working badly they are often the
10 worst because the size of them and their close-knitness
11 means that it does not become obvious to outsiders what
12 is going wrong.
13 MS AKERS: I would be surprised if I did not get a sense of
14 that.
15 MR GARNHAM: That is exactly what happened in this case, is
16 it not? You did not get a sense of how badly Haringey
17 for example was performing, Haringey CPT?
18 MS AKERS: Not in the sense you are referring to, no.
19 MR GARNHAM: Second question, you seem to suggest and you
20 have done repeatedly during your evidence thus far that
21 it is for the DIs or the sergeants themselves to seek
22 assistance rather than that supervision being imposed
23 upon them.
24 MS AKERS: Only because of the conditions that -- the
25 context in which we were working. Ideally there would
29
1 have been somebody that was dedicated to supervising
2 CPTs and would then be much more intrusive and much more
3 hands-on than we were able to.
4 MR GARNHAM: That has an obvious flaw when you are simply
5 reacting to reports coming up from below.
6 MS AKERS: It does.
7 MR GARNHAM: If it happens that the DIs are either so
8 overwhelmed or so ill-trained or incompetent, so that
9 they do not report up, you never get to know?
10 MS AKERS: That is possible.
11 MR GARNHAM: It just seems, if I can suggest this to you so
12 I can get your response, a very peculiar way to manage
13 anything.
14 MS AKERS: Without going through the whole system that we
15 had, given the environment in which we were operating
16 and which a tiny percentage of our time was able to be
17 devoted to CPTs, I think we gave them the best
18 management and support that we could.
19 MR GARNHAM: Were you content that Wheeler was conducting
20 the annual appraisals of the DIs for whom he was
21 responsible?
22 MS AKERS: Yes, he was eventually.
23 MR GARNHAM: What is the word eventually --
24 MS AKERS: Annual appraisals throughout my career and the
25 entire service have always been an administrative burden
30
1 and not always completed in a timely fashion as they
2 should be.
3 MR GARNHAM: It is not how they should be seen, is it? They
4 ought to be seen as valuable management tools?
5 MS AKERS: Of course they should.
6 MR GARNHAM: As ways of discovering what is going wrong and
7 what is going right?
8 MS AKERS: (Nods).
9 MR GARNHAM: If they are seen as administrative burdens they
10 rather lose that value, do they not?
11 MS AKERS: They do, yes, and I think they have lost their
12 value in many ways, but nevertheless Phil was quite
13 conscientious about getting the appraisals done.
14 MR GARNHAM: If that is how they are viewed that is yet
15 another sense in which the management of the CP teams
16 was lacking.
17 MS AKERS: I am giving you a general view across. I am not
18 saying that that is particularly there, but ...
19 MR GARNHAM: Was it different there for CPTs?
20 MS AKERS: I cannot imagine why it would be any different
21 because they were long processes and additional burdens
22 on already overstretched officers and I am afraid that
23 is a symptom of the organisation.
24 MR GARNHAM: Mr Cox says in his statement, the statement
25 with which you agree -- paragraph 62 of that statement
31
1 for your note sir -- that he did not expect Wheeler to
2 have day-to-day management supervision of individual
3 CP offices; so who did have that responsibility?
4 No one?
5 MS AKERS: The DI.
6 MR GARNHAM: Who had responsibility for the DIs? No one?
7 Who had day-to-day management supervision of the DIs?
8 MS AKERS: As line managers Phil Wheeler was, but it would
9 be unreasonable for him to have to actually manage their
10 work, given where they were.
11 MR GARNHAM: Cox says that he did not expect Wheeler to have
12 day-to-day management supervision of individual --
13 MS AKERS: Cases.
14 MR GARNHAM: No, CP offices.
15 MS AKERS: Offices, right.
16 MR GARNHAM: So who does have day-to-day management
17 supervision of the DIs, no one?
18 MS AKERS: Phil Wheeler does but I think what Mr Cox is
19 saying in his statement is that because he is not
20 physically located there he could not expect him to
21 manage the running of the offices, which was the
22 responsibility of the DIs. Does that make sense?
23 MR GARNHAM: It might do when I come to read the transcript.
24 Let me move on. You have told us that you were content
25 for DIs to report direct to you if they had problems or
32
1 concerns.
2 MS AKERS: Yes.
3 MR GARNHAM: Did they do so during 1999?
4 MS AKERS: Yes, quite a lot of them.
5 MR GARNHAM: One example of that about which we have heard
6 is DI Anderson who told us, Day 17 page 70, that he
7 reported to you his concerns about increasing workload
8 and decreasing workforce. Do you recall that?
9 MS AKERS: Not specifically but that was a situation that we
10 were well aware of.
11 MR GARNHAM: Right, of workloads growing in CP offices at
12 a time when numbers of officers available to do the work
13 was falling.
14 MS AKERS: Or was certainly not increasing commensurately,
15 yes.
16 MR GARNHAM: And sometimes actually falling, sometimes
17 people --
18 MS AKERS: Through sickness, exactly, yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: You normally attended area CPT meetings, did
20 you not?
21 MS AKERS: I did, yes.
22 MR GARNHAM: Not always and sometimes Wheeler would chair in
23 your absence?
24 MS AKERS: When I took over in January 1999 I missed the
25 first two meetings and then I chaired every one I think
33
1 except the September meeting.
2 MR GARNHAM: Can we have a look at one of those please,
3 volume 33A, page 7. This is right at the beginning of
4 your time, 19th January 1999, and we see from page 7
5 that you gave your apologies because you were on
6 a course.
7 MS AKERS: Yes.
8 MR GARNHAM: Page 8, third full paragraph down:
9 "DI Anderson was almost embarrassed to report that
10 after a lengthy period of upheaval his teams were, for
11 the time being up to establishment. However, he went on
12 to produce figures that during the year 1998 overall
13 increase in case loads for CPT on 2 Area against the
14 previous year had been 26 and a half per cent.
15 "Only the Camden team had experienced a very small
16 drop in case load. Of course that team had investigated
17 the high profile Australian nanny case. The remaining
18 teams had experienced increases ranging from 15, nearly
19 16 per cent to a massive 47 per cent.
20 "During the course of that year most of the teams
21 had been working at below establishment ... pointed out
22 that the established staffing levels for CPTs were
23 actually lower than when the teams had been established
24 in 1989-90.
25 "All present agreed that even at established levels
34
1 the teams needed additional staff and it was agreed that
2 each DI would prepare a report setting out his bid and
3 submit them to DI Anderson who would prepare a covering
4 report for consideration by the Senior Management Team."
5 You would have been aware of that because even
6 though you were not there, presumably you read the
7 minutes?
8 MS AKERS: Yes.
9 MR GARNHAM: Those are the concerns that Anderson says he
10 reported to you and they are at least area wide, are
11 they not?
12 MS AKERS: Yes, they are.
13 MR GARNHAM: What was done about it?
14 MS AKERS: As far as the preparing the report was concerned,
15 DI Anderson, you will notice from the following few
16 months, this gets brought up and he does not get the
17 reports that he wanted from the various CPTs.
18 MR GARNHAM: And the report does not get written?
19 MS AKERS: The report never got written but that is not to
20 say that we were not aware of it, but it was very clear
21 in that year, 1999, and the post-Lawrence environment in
22 which we were working, the HMIC inspection on murders,
23 that any additional resources would go to murder teams
24 and not to augment CPTs.
25 MR GARNHAM: So the answer to my original question, what was
35
1 done about it, is nothing?
2 MS AKERS: Is no. I would not say nothing was done about it
3 at all.
4 MR GARNHAM: Tell me what was then.
5 MS AKERS: So therefore we could not have increases in
6 staff. That was clear. So we looked at other ways in
7 which we could relieve teams of the pressure of their
8 work and one of the huge drains on officers' time was
9 attending -- routinely attending review case
10 conferences, and I decided that we should formalise what
11 was already happening informally in teams, and that was
12 officers not attending review case conferences, in other
13 words be completely up-front with the ACPC about what we
14 no longer could take on, so that we could concentrate on
15 those things that were very important for police to do,
16 namely investigating serious cases of child abuse. So
17 instead of augmenting the staff we looked to reduce
18 workload.
19 MR GARNHAM: I will come on to ask you more about that in
20 a moment but it is a pattern we have come across before
21 in this Inquiry from other agencies, that faced with
22 increasing workload you reduced the amount of work by
23 methods that seemed to you at the time sensible.
24 MS AKERS: Yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: Rather than increasing the staff to respond.
36
1 MS AKERS: Because we knew we did not have the staff to
2 respond.
3 MR GARNHAM: Did that solve the problem of not turning up to
4 review case conferences when you had not got anything
5 substantive to add? Did that solve the problem of --
6 MS AKERS: I think it alleviated the problem. I think they
7 felt that they could prioritise their work better
8 knowing that it was backed by a policy decision from the
9 centre, yes.
10 MR GARNHAM: I see. You recall yesterday that I asked
11 Mr Wheeler a little about attendance at senior
12 supervisors' meetings and you will have heard the nature
13 of his response. He says when I put this to him that
14 all the other areas sent officers of his rank rather
15 than yours to these meetings. First of all, is that
16 right?
17 MS AKERS: No, that is not right. When I first went to the
18 senior supervisors' meetings, the North East, South West
19 and South East areas all had dedicated DCIs who attended
20 the meetings.
21 MR GARNHAM: That is January 1999, is it?
22 MS AKERS: I did not go to January but the ones after that,
23 certainly in April and the following one in June, the
24 central area was represented by Detective Superintendent
25 Sean Sawyer and they later in the year moved to the
37
1 position of dedicated DCI, but initially there were two
2 of us that were -- two areas that were represented by
3 superintendents.
4 MR GARNHAM: After they were moved to DCI were you then the
5 only superintendent attending on behalf of --
6 MS AKERS: I was but I think there was just one meeting.
7 MR GARNHAM: Was there not a danger, do you think, of
8 undermining Wheeler's position by your attending these
9 meetings when officers of the same rank attended for
10 other areas?
11 MS AKERS: I do not see that at all.
12 MR GARNHAM: You understand what I am putting to you?
13 MS AKERS: I understand what you are saying. I do not agree
14 that it could have undermined it in any way. It was
15 clear that he and I shared the child protection work
16 given all our other responsibilities, and I took the
17 lead on strategic matters and it was entirely
18 appropriate that I attended that meeting.
19 MR GARNHAM: Did you make that clear first of all to him
20 that that is how you saw it, so that he did not feel
21 undermined?
22 MS AKERS: Never at any stage did he ever ask to attend
23 those meetings.
24 MR GARNHAM: That was not my question.
25 MS AKERS: I know it was not your question but I am trying
38
1 to work out whether -- why I would have ever had to
2 explain why something perfectly obvious when I had
3 strategic responsibility for CPTs, why he would have
4 ever questioned that, and he did not, and I doubt that
5 I ever actually sat down with him and said, "I am going
6 to the CPT senior supervisors because it is right that
7 I attend it and not you".
8 MR GARNHAM: Did the other areas organise the management of
9 their CPTs differently then without this split between
10 strategic and line management?
11 MS AKERS: I do not know how they -- is the honest answer to
12 that. They were represented at, the senior supervisors,
13 at DCI level. I do not know what support or who gave
14 that DCI any support. I do not know.
15 MR GARNHAM: Did you make it clear to the DIs that that was
16 the way in which you and Wheeler were dividing up the
17 cake?
18 MS AKERS: Yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: You did?
20 MS AKERS: Yes.
21 MR GARNHAM: How did you do that?
22 MS AKERS: I told them that I had strategic responsibility
23 and attended the senior supervisors' meetings which they
24 saw and knew and they knew that day-to-day problems and
25 administrative problems were Phil Wheeler's.
39
1 MR GARNHAM: You did not think there was a danger of
2 blurring responsibility by your going to that meeting
3 when other areas sent the Wheeler equivalent?
4 MS AKERS: No, I just do not see the point that was trying
5 to be made yesterday at all.
6 MR GARNHAM: Did you ensure then that Wheeler was kept in on
7 the loop as to what took place at those senior
8 supervisors' meetings?
9 MS AKERS: Yes, I did.
10 MR GARNHAM: How?
11 MS AKERS: Well, firstly we talked regularly. If both of us
12 were in the office we would talk on a daily basis, so
13 had I been to a senior supervisors' I would have told
14 him any matters that had come out of that. Secondly, it
15 was always reported back to the CPT DIs meetings that
16 I chaired and that Phil attended as well; and thirdly,
17 the minutes were kept in a binder marked "CPT Senior
18 Supervisors' Meetings" on a shelf in my office which at
19 any time he could read. So there was no question of him
20 not being kept in the loop.
21 MR GARNHAM: Would it not have been diplomatic to have him
22 added to the circulation list for those minutes?
23 MS AKERS: I honestly do not see the need for more
24 bureaucracy.
25 MR GARNHAM: He needed to know, did he not, routinely?
40
1 MS AKERS: If he wanted to be on the circulation list as he
2 did some nine months later he only had to make a phone
3 call and it was done.
4 MR GARNHAM: Because it was necessary --
5 MS AKERS: As a DCI I think he can take responsibility for
6 doing that himself.
7 MR GARNHAM: It was necessary, was it not, for the proper
8 performance of his job that he should know routinely
9 what that senior supervisors' meeting was deciding?
10 MS AKERS: And he did.
11 MR GARNHAM: But in order to make sure he was up to speed
12 with it, he would have had to come to your office, get
13 down your minutes and read them?
14 MS AKERS: I circulated the minutes or my -- somebody on my
15 behalf circulated minutes and any relevant documents to
16 the CPT DIs so I find it hard to believe that --
17 MR GARNHAM: And to him?
18 MS AKERS: Yes, because he was an attendee of that meeting.
19 MR GARNHAM: You heard him yesterday. His point was that
20 not attending those meetings and not being circulated
21 with the minutes immediately afterwards meant that he
22 did not know what was being decided on a monthly basis
23 and he was not able to influence it. What do you say to
24 that?
25 MS AKERS: I do not agree at all and the analogy I would
41
1 draw is that I cannot operate properly as a Borough
2 Commander because I am not privy to the Commissioner's
3 policy board meetings or management board meetings,
4 which is what he was saying really because he did not
5 get a feel of how the meeting was, and I do not accept
6 that at all that you actually need to be at every
7 meeting in order to react to decisions that are made.
8 MR GARNHAM: Slightly different, because not all borough
9 commanders are at the chief constables' meetings, are
10 they?
11 MS AKERS: None of us are, that is my point, and yet I still
12 can operate with knowing what policy is being decided at
13 a higher level without having to be in on those
14 meetings.
15 MR GARNHAM: That is not the precise parallel of this, is
16 it, because the parallel of that would be if all borough
17 commanders except you were at those chief constables'
18 meetings, might you not feel disadvantaged by that?
19 MS AKERS: No. I think what has happened is we have got
20 preoccupied with rank and it is wrong and although there
21 were two superintendents and three chief inspectors, we
22 had the role which was responsibility for the strategic
23 development of CPTs within our area.
24 MR GARNHAM: You will have gathered that I was heading --
25 I suspect you will have gathered I was heading towards
42
1 such a point with Mr Wheeler when we were interrupted
2 yesterday, that there was in him a preoccupation with
3 rank and status.
4 MS AKERS: Yes.
5 MR GARNHAM: Do you think that is a fair criticism of him?
6 MS AKERS: Yes.
7 MR GARNHAM: You tell us in your second statement, page 508,
8 after the bullet point in our bundle, that on taking up
9 your post in January 1999 you visited each CPT.
10 MS AKERS: Yes, I did, except -- formally except for the one
11 at Edgware which was an informal visit and Mick Anderson
12 was not there but I did visit every one on at least one
13 occasion.
14 MR GARNHAM: Do you remember the visit to Brent?
15 MS AKERS: That is the Edgware one.
16 MR GARNHAM: When did you visit Haringey, which is at
17 Highgate Police Station, is it not?
18 MS AKERS: February.
19 MR GARNHAM: That is Highgate Police Station?
20 MS AKERS: Yes.
21 MR GARNHAM: February?
22 MS AKERS: This was in the short period of --
23 MR GARNHAM: Introductory round?
24 MS AKERS: But also when I did not have these other
25 responsibilities and I had the time available to me to
43
1 go and start to get to grips with what was happening at
2 CPTs.
3 MR GARNHAM: Were you able to speak to staff at all levels
4 or were you just speaking to the DIs?
5 MS AKERS: What I usually did was spend some time with the
6 DI first and then go into an office meeting and be
7 introduced to everybody.
8 MR GARNHAM: Did you visit Haringey or Brent again after
9 that?
10 MS AKERS: Not, no, not in the same way, in other words that
11 I could revisit addressing the same things, no, I just
12 did not have the time at that point.
13 MR GARNHAM: Did you visit at all Haringey and Brent?
14 MS AKERS: I may have called in informally to see people but
15 I did not have a visit like that again.
16 MR GARNHAM: We were asking witnesses from these teams as
17 they came on what they saw of their senior officers, and
18 I think it is right that you were seen once by the
19 officers in these teams. That would be right, would it?
20 MS AKERS: Yes. Some of the teams would have seen me more
21 than that.
22 MR GARNHAM: The two we are particularly interested in are
23 Haringey and Brent.
24 MS AKERS: Yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: There is a good deal spoken of in management
44
1 circles in all fields about the value of senior managers
2 appearing on the shop floor. The jargon is walking the
3 talk, showing that you are interested in what happens to
4 the people who are actually at the coal face.
5 MS AKERS: Yes.
6 MR GARNHAM: Would you agree there is value in that?
7 MS AKERS: Very much so.
8 MR GARNHAM: And it is time constraints that prevented you
9 doing it, was it?
10 MS AKERS: Only that, yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: Wheeler was seen even less than you. I think
12 of all those we asked, only one ever saw him at all and
13 that is that officer only saw him once, which does add
14 somewhat to the semi-detached feeling you get with the
15 CPTs, that they are out there managing what you in
16 senior management recognised were serious problems on
17 their own.
18 MS AKERS: Yes, and I have been there and that is exactly
19 how it is.
20 MR GARNHAM: Out of sight out of mind?
21 MS AKERS: No, not like that, but very much you do feel
22 isolated and you do feel that you are very much on your
23 own because unless you are located within a police
24 station, the accommodation was also remote from other
25 police officers. So I do have some sympathy with that
45
1 view.
2 MR GARNHAM: It does rather compound the difficulties under
3 which these teams were labouring, does it not? We are
4 going to come on to talk about resources and equipment
5 and things, but you do not differ, I suspect, with much
6 of what I am going to ask you about the shortages of
7 those things for these teams. You have told us about
8 the limitations on line management for these teams. You
9 have told us about their geographical spread and you
10 have told us that senior managers were not able to visit
11 them. You have agreed that there is a remoteness about
12 the way they operate. Adding all those things together,
13 it is a pretty unhappy picture, is it not?
14 MS AKERS: Yes, and I think the CPTs have been neglected by
15 the organisation.
16 MR GARNHAM: More importantly than the happiness of the
17 officers, it is precisely the sort of circumstances in
18 which things can go badly wrong.
19 MS AKERS: As has proved.
20 MR GARNHAM: It is not just us sitting or standing in this
21 comfortable room months later who can work that out.
22 That must be pretty obvious as a risk to the Met at the
23 time.
24 MS AKERS: I am not sure it was.
25 MR GARNHAM: But it should have been.
46
1 MS AKERS: I think it should have been, yes.
2 MR GARNHAM: You tell us however that as a result of the
3 meetings, the round of meetings you had early on in your
4 tenure of post, that you had -- and also I suppose
5 because you have done the job yourself -- that you had
6 a pretty good idea of the sort of difficulties these
7 teams were facing. We have heard evidence about their
8 difficulties with IT, accommodation, staffing levels,
9 number of detectives in each team, relations with other
10 agencies. I want to ask you a little about each of
11 those. You said in your second statement, in answer to
12 one of the potential criticisms the Inquiry made of you,
13 that you had appraised yourself about this from the
14 beginning and so the concerns that were expressed
15 subsequently would have come as no surprise to you.
16 MS AKERS: The concerns that were raised when I appraised
17 myself of them came as no surprise. At the time, when
18 I went through how officers were equipped as far as IT
19 and accommodation and all those other subjects that you
20 raised were concerned, the fact that they were found
21 wanting did not surprise me because it had been the same
22 story when I was in charge of them.
23 MR GARNHAM: So you knew the problems and what I am
24 interested to know is what you did about them. You tell
25 us that they were discussed at the monthly CPT meetings
47
1 and the senior supervisors' meetings. Discussion is
2 obviously a necessary prerequisite to getting on with
3 doing something, but what did you actually do about
4 solving these problems? What did you do about IT for
5 example?
6 MS AKERS: IT was a subject that was given to me
7 specifically to take forward.
8 MR GARNHAM: You chaired a working party of some sort, did
9 you not?
10 MS AKERS: I led on IT for the area and I actually used two
11 DIs who did a lot of work on my behalf in preparing
12 stuff so that I could progress this on an MPS-wide
13 level, and as far as I know this working party is still
14 in existence some two years later and IT may be
15 progressing but at a very slow stage. I am just trying
16 to give you an idea of the speed or lack of speed at
17 which major projects like this in an organisation of our
18 size travel at.
19 MR GARNHAM: So you were aware of those problems in January
20 1999 and here we are in January 2002, three years later.
21 MS AKERS: And they still have not got the kind of IT vision
22 that we had.
23 MR GARNHAM: It is easy for us sitting here to be critical,
24 but that does seem a trifle slow even for a big
25 organisation like the Met.
48
1 MS AKERS: It is a huge frustration. It is a huge
2 frustration to me and other managers like me that it
3 does take so very long to get projects like this and it
4 all depends on the priority that is accorded at the most
5 senior level.
6 MR GARNHAM: IT is a classic example of this. It is
7 a valuable tool that can positively improve the position
8 when it is properly deployed, is it not?
9 MS AKERS: It is.
10 MR GARNHAM: It can be a positive hindrance however if some
11 have the benefit of it and others do not.
12 MS AKERS: And that was the case with CPTs.
13 MR GARNHAM: That was the case with CPTs because Otis, which
14 I will ask you about in a moment was up and working
15 elsewhere but not for the poor so and so's in CPT.
16 MS AKERS: Absolutely.
17 MR GARNHAM: Tell us about Otis. How was it intended to
18 help?
19 MS AKERS: It was intended that the CPTs would all get the
20 Otis 4 rollout.
21 MR GARNHAM: Tell us what Otis 4 is.
22 MS AKERS: I am not best placed to do this.
23 MR GARNHAM: I thought you might be simply because you said
24 you were leading on this.
25 MS AKERS: It is a computer package which makes talking to
49
1 one another that much easier, has e-mail facilities, has
2 Forum, has a lot of facilities that --
3 MR GARNHAM: That is all I need, thank you very much. That
4 is all I will understand anyway. Your first explanation
5 is it enables people to talk to each other.
6 MS AKERS: Yes.
7 MR GARNHAM: If it were all in place it means CPTs could
8 talk to borough CID officers?
9 MS AKERS: Yes.
10 MR GARNHAM: And interrogate their systems and elsewhere
11 across the Met?
12 MS AKERS: Yes.
13 MR GARNHAM: It would reduce the sort of isolation that we
14 have been talking about?
15 MS AKERS: Very much so.
16 MR GARNHAM: In many ways can I suggest it is exactly the
17 sort of thing that these semi-detached CP teams ought to
18 be getting first?
19 MS AKERS: I think so, yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: Because it is slightly back to front to provide
21 those sort of facilities to the teams that are already
22 substantially integrated into the Met because they have
23 already got the benefit of that integration.
24 MS AKERS: Yes, I cannot disagree with you.
25 MR GARNHAM: So rather than the CPTs being the last to
50
1 receive Otis they ought to have been amongst the first.
2 MS AKERS: Yes, I think they should.
3 MR GARNHAM: Why did not it happen?
4 MS AKERS: That is a question which I am not able to answer
5 but that is a question that really needs to be addressed
6 to whoever decided on the priorities from the Department
7 of Technology.
8 MR GARNHAM: I am, as I read the statement, and particularly
9 the ones that have been delivered to us late in the day
10 from you and Cox, am increasingly beginning to wonder
11 that we are not asking some of these questions to senior
12 enough officers in the Met.
13 MS AKERS: No, you are not.
14 MR GARNHAM: Where ought we be asking and presumably if we
15 asked the Commissioner we will be told that he looks at
16 it at too high and too strategic a level, so we would be
17 wasting our time calling him. Where should we be
18 pitching this?
19 MS AKERS: If you are asking about how major IT projects are
20 rolled out and how priorities are accorded, you need to
21 be addressing that to some members of the management
22 board, I would say.
23 MR GARNHAM: It would be a little more helpful if we knew
24 the names.
25 MS AKERS: Unfortunately the person that would have been in
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