Archived Transcript for 28 January 2002: Pages 201 to 252


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1 is difficult without knowing exactly what goes on at

2 these meetings, but one wonders also the extent to

3 which, if he did have an identifiable lack of knowledge

4 about the day-to-day running of CP teams as compared

5 with his colleagues elsewhere, that may have been

6 a forum in which that could have been highlighted, could

7 it not?

8 MR KELLEHER: It certainly would have been.

9 MR SHELDON: Because one might imagine an agenda item which

10 would throw up a conversation like, "How is this working

11 on the ground in your area, DCI Wheeler?" to which

12 DCI Wheeler may have replied, "I do not know because

13 I have not been there for a long time."

14 MR KELLEHER: Hypothetically, yes.

15 MR SHELDON: Could we move on now to the second topic

16 I indicated to you at the outset which is the

17 relationship between the police and other agencies.

18 Before we start that, just a quick question on the

19 manual, which we have discussed at length in the

20 evidence of others. You discovered when you started to

21 look at child protection in January 2000 or thereabouts

22 that the manual was out of date. Is that right?

23 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

24 MR SHELDON: You decided that a rewrite was needed?

25 MR KELLEHER: That is right.

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1 MR SHELDON: You put, as I understand it, a team of several

2 people on that task?

3 MR KELLEHER: I did indeed.

4 MR SHELDON: A group of I think you would describe them as

5 experienced CP officers. There were some sergeants,

6 some PCs, headed up initially by DCI Wheeler?

7 MR KELLEHER: And detective inspectors.

8 MR SHELDON: And detective inspectors. And there is now

9 a detective constable in SO5 headquarters who is

10 responsible for keeping it up-to-date; is that right?

11 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

12 MR SHELDON: Given the way you approached it, namely with

13 a team of a number of officers, somebody to keep it

14 up-to-date on an ongoing basis, do you think that the

15 rewrite of the Child Protection Manual could ever be

16 something that an otherwise extremely busy officer could

17 somehow try and squeeze into the rest of their working

18 day?

19 MR KELLEHER: It has been a very large problematic piece of

20 work to get right. We still have not got it right and

21 we are working on version 5, although when I say "get it

22 right", the material to be included in it, that is

23 ongoing work. I could not imagine by any stretch of the

24 imagination that Ms Akers could have accomplished that

25 task in her particular role, given what North West Crime

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1 OCU were dealing with, at that time in the realms of

2 murder.

3 MR SHELDON: So you would support the decision that would

4 appear to have been taken back then that a rewrite was

5 needed, but you would have serious questions about

6 whether the plan for doing that was properly conceived;

7 namely, asking a busy detective superintendent somehow

8 to squeeze that job in?

9 MR KELLEHER: You needed a team of practitioners at the

10 lower end of the scale to be looking at some of the

11 detail. A cross-section of staff but mainly

12 practitioners.

13 MR SHELDON: The current incarnation of that manual is draft

14 4; is that right?

15 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

16 MR SHELDON: We have that at volume 43, page 98. As

17 I understand it, draft 5 is going to come out after the

18 recommendations of this Inquiry have been made; is that

19 right?

20 MR KELLEHER: We are considering that and we need to discuss

21 that with our lawyers. It may form part of part 2 at

22 this stage.

23 MR SHELDON: Although it is being called a "draft" it is

24 being used on the street at the moment.

25 MR KELLEHER: Absolutely.

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1 MR SHELDON: Have you had any feedback as to how easy it is

2 to use, how comprehensive it is?

3 MR KELLEHER: Some teams are finding it more difficult to

4 use because they are having to do more work than they

5 previously did.

6 MR SHELDON: But that is not a problem as far as you are

7 concerned?

8 MR KELLEHER: Not really because I am laying down

9 professional standards for how investigations should be

10 conducted.

11 MR SHELDON: Although the child protection teams are now all

12 working from one up-to-date manual, set of procedures,

13 the local authorities from within which these teams work

14 are not?

15 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, sir.

16 MR SHELDON: It seems from paragraph 50 of your first

17 statement that some level of harmonisation has been

18 achieved between seven boroughs in south London; is that

19 right?

20 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, sir.

21 MR SHELDON: What sort of things do they now have in common?

22 MR KELLEHER: They now have common definitions and they

23 purportedly have a common threshold, but I --

24 MR SHELDON: Common threshold of ...?

25 MR KELLEHER: Of intervention by agencies. Is it a single

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1 agency, central services matter? Is it a single agency

2 police matter? Is it a joint investigation? So it lays

3 that sort of detail out.

4 However, when I look at the CRIS entries for that

5 particular area I find that the percentage of childcare

6 issues -- we have two types of entry on the CRIS. Some

7 things are quite clearly crime matters and they are

8 quite easy, they sit in their own box. But then we have

9 childcare issue matters, so they generally would be

10 matters arising out of Section 17 of the Children Act

11 inquiry brought about by Social Services departments.

12 The Met felt it needed, quite rightly needed

13 a register of any activity we undertook in relation to

14 those, and they were treated like crimes but given

15 a non-crime, non-Home Office classification, and they

16 were called CCIs. Now when I look across London, the

17 percentage volume of the CRIS entries for each team

18 varies considerably. In Camden for instance 69 per cent

19 of the CRIS entries for that team are CCIs or

20 potentially Section 17 non-crime inquiries. Go down to

21 the seven boroughs area and two of the teams there run

22 about 9 per cent. The remaining three teams at

23 30 per cent.

24 MR SHELDON: So --

25 MR KELLEHER: The rest of London is sort of in between those

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1 sort of extremes.

2 MR SHELDON: So that would mean the Camden threshold for

3 a referral being treated as a crime is much lower than

4 it is in south London?

5 MR KELLEHER: Or equally, we are engaging in Social Services

6 matters that would not normally be dealt with by police.

7 I mean, I currently as we speak have an inspection team

8 into the Camden team, and two others in the north which

9 are at the higher range of the percentage scale, and

10 I currently have the same team visiting the south, the

11 seven boroughs area to try and look at that and other

12 issues.

13 You have heard earlier on from other witnesses about

14 a form 78 which is a report where a child comes to the

15 notice of police. Last year my team dealt with 80,000

16 such reports and they would be in the ordinary course of

17 events, having been checked for relevance under the

18 various Data Protection Acts, would be forwarded on to

19 our partner agencies.

20 The ratio in Camden is one CRIS entry to every two

21 form 78s. Other parts of London it could be three, four

22 or five. Go down to the seven boroughs area, you are

23 looking at one to nine, one to 10. One of the teams is

24 one CRIS entry for every nineteen 78s. So something

25 tells me there is an inconsistency at work here which

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1 I need to get to the bottom of and currently that is

2 what I am trying to endeavour doing, but I feel part of

3 the answer lies in the different interpretations between

4 the boroughs and the CPTs and I go further than that,

5 anecdotal evidence, and I know it is always difficult to

6 rely on that sort of evidence, but I am told that

7 a number of teams where they deal with more than one

8 area social services office, that the interpretation of

9 local arrangements may differ from different offices

10 within the same borough.

11 So all these things play into it because there are

12 no national standards to follow and each ACPC area and

13 each social services department have their own book of

14 rules, and I probably now have aggravated it even

15 further by producing a manual trying to set police

16 professional standards that somehow produces minimum

17 standards that interlocks with all these other

18 agreements.

19 MR SHELDON: I wonder whether it would be fair to summarise

20 that by saying there are three points here. Firstly, it

21 is not just enough to have harmonisation, you have to

22 make sure that your thresholds and your criteria are

23 right, because otherwise harmonisation for its own sake

24 will not help if you are getting the criteria wrong?

25 MR KELLEHER: Correct.

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1 MR SHELDON: Secondly, there is a wide or what would appear

2 to be a wide discrepancy in those sets of criteria in

3 different parts of London and that is something that has

4 to be addressed?

5 MR KELLEHER: (Nods).

6 MR SHELDON: Thirdly, it is not just enough to get

7 harmonisation on a borough level, you have to go down

8 even further to make sure that even within that borough,

9 or that set of boroughs that are all supposedly singing

10 from the same hymn sheet, that all the individual

11 offices are as well; is that right?

12 MR KELLEHER: That is a good summary.

13 MR SHELDON: So we are not just in a position of

14 simplistically being able to say: what we need to do now

15 is get this seven borough model -- I understand there

16 are going to be eight soon with Lambeth -- and roll it

17 out across London, because all we have is an ideal model

18 down there which would be equally applicable all around

19 London. Is that right?

20 MR KELLEHER: Yes, you could not just roll it out. I would

21 think a number of the other London boroughs would

22 challenge whether it was an ideal model as well.

23 MR SHELDON: There would be no point rolling it out either

24 unless you were sure down there that you had all the

25 criteria set at the right levels.

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1 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

2 MR SHELDON: But if you were able to set the criteria at the

3 right levels and you were able to find a mechanism by

4 which you could filter that harmonisation down to

5 individual office level, in those circumstances an ideal

6 world would be a single set of procedures for London?

7 MR KELLEHER: It would have to go further in London I would

8 suggest, because in the Home Office circular, which

9 accompanied the Children Act, I think it was that one,

10 there is best practice as promulgated by the Home Office

11 where an offence occurs to a child in child protection

12 issues, we can check that within the child protection

13 team's Terms of Reference it is familiar. The

14 social services department and police service of the

15 place where the child ordinarily resides should actually

16 deal with that crime.

17 Now my officers go to different parts of the country

18 and we assist colleagues from other parts of the country

19 in London, so it would be extremely helpful if we were

20 talking on an England and Wales basis and not just

21 a London basis, purely for practicalities.

22 MR SHELDON: I see. But even if you could not manage that,

23 there would still be significant advantages, as I say,

24 provided you get the structure right, to have one system

25 within London because then you could move offices, could

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1 you not, from one team to another team without them

2 having to catch up with the new procedures?

3 MR KELLEHER: That is absolutely correct, but you would have

4 to have a trading regime linked into that and that is

5 another area I am looking into, as I highlighted in my

6 discussion.

7 MR SHELDON: Discussions about this sort of Pan London

8 approach have been ongoing as I understand it for some

9 time now. You say for example in paragraph 55 of your

10 statement that DI Suett went to an ACPC co-ordinators'

11 meeting back in January 2001 where this was discussed

12 and you say that at that stage there was broad agreement

13 on the issues and they were looking at funding

14 a consultant to look into it further.

15 You also say at paragraph 52 of your first statement

16 that there was due to be a seminar in June 2001 for --

17 MR KELLEHER: It took place, yes.

18 MR SHELDON: That is not something I think you update us on

19 in your second statement. What is the current state of

20 play?

21 MR KELLEHER: I think DCI Howlett would be a better person

22 to -- she has been pursuing that in particular with the

23 Greater London Association of Directors of

24 Social Services and she will be leading on the training

25 issues that have fallen out of the work from our

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1 consultants, and particularly the one around the ACPC

2 protocols.

3 MR SHELDON: We will ask her that because it just seems on

4 the face of it, from your statement, that this process

5 may have stalled a bit, in that there was broad

6 agreement in January 2001 but despite that broad

7 agreement we were not much further down the line.

8 MR KELLEHER: Yes. I do apologise if that is the impression

9 that has been created. In fact a lot of energy has gone

10 in there. We have to consult with other partners. We

11 have a Pan London multi-agency working group which

12 Assistance Commissioner Veness chairs. It meets

13 monthly. Our difficulty is lining up the meeting cycles

14 with all the other agencies. So for instance the

15 Directors of Education for London, Pan London group,

16 meet there. The director comes to that particular forum

17 and various other Pan London groups like that, groups

18 which have no executive power in themselves, they have

19 to go back to their various Met constituent member

20 agencies and be able to go back to their own Chief

21 Executives et cetera to talk about these things. So

22 very slow.

23 MR SHELDON: There is a general will, so far as you can see,

24 or a general agreement that this is a direction which is

25 or has benefits for all parties?

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1 MR KELLEHER: I think it will be welcome, yes.

2 MR SHELDON: Because you touch on the point, so it may be

3 that it is best to ask a Social Services specialist

4 about this, but you touch on the point that this would

5 be beneficial for Social Services as well, given the

6 fluidity of which we have had some evidence of staff

7 from within London moving from borough to borough and

8 how much better for them if they are all working from

9 the same set of procedures if and when they move.

10 MR KELLEHER: Looking from the police perspective in towards

11 the social workers our staff are dealing with a number

12 of locum social workers in some boroughs and it would be

13 helpful to have a social worker that just moved in on

14 a locum basis who has used to a different regime.

15 MR SHELDON: Have you considered what the principal

16 obstacles might be to achieving this sort of Pan London

17 approach?

18 MR KELLEHER: I think there may well be reluctance on

19 individual agencies to sign up to regimes that will

20 commit them to resources, bearing in mind money is tight

21 to everybody. That is perhaps an essential barrier.

22 MR SHELDON: Paragraph 48 of your second statement you refer

23 to the historic perception that Social Services are the

24 lead agency in crimes against children. This I take

25 it -- and I am paraphrasing and you will tell me if

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1 inaccurately -- is to suggest that in the past perhaps

2 the police have in some instances lost focus on their

3 responsibility to investigate what is in fact a crime.

4 Would that be fair?

5 MR KELLEHER: I think that is probably right. There seems

6 to be a state of mind that if you go to a meeting you

7 can remotely investigate something. Sending a hospital

8 social worker for example to go and get evidence from

9 a doctor, that is a good example.

10 MR SHELDON: You say you are cautiously optimistic you have

11 changed that historic perception. What do you base that

12 optimism on?

13 MR KELLEHER: On trying to enforce professional standards.

14 I have issued a one-page document that I think sets out

15 what a successful investigation looks like, the key

16 areas I expect my officers to consider when they are

17 putting together an investigation plan. I have a fear

18 that prior to doing that there was no clear separate

19 plans for the Section 47 or Section 17 investigation on

20 the Social Services side and the police investigation.

21 They are two very clear processes with different

22 outcomes, albeit there are some commonality, areas of

23 commonality in medical examinations, interviewing et

24 cetera.

25 But I think there must be two clear processes and

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1 the police officers in charge of the police

2 investigation must have control of the investigative

3 process, and my professional standards guide is to make

4 sure they know exactly what that process should look

5 like.

6 MR SHELDON: Yes, I see, thank you. Can we move on to the

7 third topic which is training. The new arrangements and

8 opportunities for training now within child protection

9 teams are complicated and they are in several different

10 parts of your two statements and I just want to run

11 through them with you to see that I have them all and

12 I have understood them.

13 First of all, at paragraph 104 of your first

14 statement, you have set up a specialist training unit

15 now, is that right?

16 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

17 MR SHELDON: You said that you were having some difficulties

18 with recruitment to that unit when you wrote your first

19 statement?

20 MR KELLEHER: I have now dealt with that and it is fully

21 staffed.

22 MR SHELDON: It is up to establishment, is it? Is it

23 operating in the manner you envisaged when you set it

24 up?

25 MR KELLEHER: It is indeed.

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1 MR SHELDON: One of its jobs as I understand it is to

2 identify in relation to individual officers where there

3 are gaps in their training and put a personal

4 development plan in place for that officer to plug those

5 gaps.

6 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

7 MR SHELDON: You are content, are you, that that mechanism

8 means that each individual officer will receive the

9 training that he or she needs?

10 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, there are varying levels of

11 skill -- skills within the OCU and that is being

12 addressed on a one to one basis.

13 MR SHELDON: Can we then turn to see what that looks like in

14 practical terms. All senior officers down to detective

15 inspector level in SO5 have now as I understand it

16 attended the senior investigative officers' course at

17 Hendon?

18 MR KELLEHER: Unfortunately the churn factor of people

19 moving on means that we are bringing new people in all

20 the time and another six placed people will have to be

21 trained in this new year and will have to go on the

22 courses.

23 MR SHELDON: Subject to what one would imagine is an

24 inevitable time lag that is going to be created by new

25 people coming into post, all officers, DI and above,

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1 will go on that course?

2 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, and an additional course

3 which we are developing with our multi-agency group

4 which I have described as the hydra training, which I am

5 not sure if you want to go any further than that. That

6 is multi-agency critical incident training.

7 MR SHELDON: I will go through all five. If I miss any out

8 at the end it would be helpful if you tell me. Next,

9 you have a foundation child protection course, run at

10 the detective training school in Hendon?

11 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

12 MR SHELDON: That was there before you came into post, was

13 it not?

14 MR KELLEHER: It was being developed after I came back into

15 post but the work had started with Commander Howlett

16 beforehand and that particular course is based on the

17 National Police Training Foundation detective training,

18 and we have taken the relevant parts that affect child

19 protection out. So for instance you would not find

20 fraud, forgery, that sort of offence in there.

21 Physical, sexual abuse, child neglect issues will be

22 dealt with there.

23 MR SHELDON: So you would not have the problem that

24 Commander Kendrick was alluding to earlier, namely half

25 the course or 60 per cent of the course not being

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1 relevant; it is all relevant?

2 MR KELLEHER: It is all relevant. It actually takes you

3 through the investigative process, which is relevant to

4 any offence in actual fact, right the way through to the

5 disclosure and prosecution stages.

6 MR SHELDON: That is a three-week course and all new

7 entrants under the CPTs will do it?

8 MR KELLEHER: And we have now started retraining all the

9 other staff. The last course passed out last Friday, so

10 there are an additional 14 officers since I completed my

11 second statement trained. There are about 114 I think

12 left to go through. All those uniform officers who have

13 not completed detective training will do it regardless

14 of whether they have done the old course or not.

15 MR SHELDON: So for example those 70 who had done the old

16 course when you came on to SO5, they will still have to

17 do this new three-week one?

18 MR KELLEHER: And the sergeants, because I feel quite

19 strongly that we ought to give the best possible

20 training to the sergeants, because I have a large number

21 of uniform supervisors, probably about two-thirds of the

22 sergeants on CPTs. I heard an agreement on Friday that

23 full CID foundation will be given to all 44 of those

24 over this forthcoming year.

25 MR SHELDON: Next, Detective Chief Inspector Tullock is

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1 I think dealing with Memorandum of Good Practice

2 training in the seven boroughs in south London, is that

3 right?

4 MR KELLEHER: She has been instrumental in pushing that

5 forward.

6 MR SHELDON: That is a two-week course?

7 MR KELLEHER: It is a week memorandum and a week

8 multi-agency training.

9 MR SHELDON: For all CP officers?

10 MR KELLEHER: All CP and social workers.

11 MR SHELDON: Are you planning to roll it out beyond the

12 seven boroughs?

13 MR KELLEHER: One of the difficulties is each borough in

14 London has different training arrangements. We have to

15 negotiate the level and quality of the training with our

16 partners. We simply could not just steam-roller it out

17 because it is a multi-agency training course.

18 MR SHELDON: Next, the one-day supervisors course that all

19 the inspectors and sergeants will do.

20 MR KELLEHER: We have done one of those. We have most of --

21 about over half the staff supervisors in the first one.

22 We are going to run a second one to capture the rest.

23 MR SHELDON: You refer in paragraph 23 of your second

24 statement to a leadership training day. Is that one and

25 the same thing?

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1 MR KELLEHER: That is it.

2 MR SHELDON: Then all the branch detectives -- this is 8B of

3 your second statement -- so those who are not

4 substantive detectives will do the three-week child

5 protection course. Is that the one we have been

6 discussing?

7 MR KELLEHER: Yes.

8 MR SHELDON: So that is not just branch detectives, everyone

9 will do that?

10 MR KELLEHER: No, that is just branch detectives, because

11 the detectives in the branch already have done it

12 already, they have done the full course.

13 MR SHELDON: I understand, yes. So you will not have to do

14 the CP course and the detective course; you do one or

15 the other?

16 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

17 MR SHELDON: Everybody is going to do community and race

18 relations training?

19 MR KELLEHER: Yes, we have substantially trained most people

20 now.

21 MR SHELDON: Over the next few weeks you are going to be

22 seeing all your CP staff in the course of 15 one-day

23 seminars to discuss this case?

24 MR KELLEHER: This case and leadership and building

25 a supervision model from the ground up.

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1 MR SHELDON: Have I missed anything out?

2 MR KELLEHER: Yes, designated officer training is a very

3 important role. On reading Mr Garnham's opening,

4 I caused research to be conducted in our -- the crime

5 policy branch that had the General Registry docket

6 discovered a fundamental error.

7 That error has been corrected, a police notice has

8 been produced, and I felt it was of such importance that

9 we train every member of our staff in child protection

10 teams fully. So it was a half day training course has

11 been designed. It is rolled out. We have currently

12 managed to achieve 60 per cent of our staff trained,

13 even I have gone on it to make sure I set an example,

14 the importance I attach to that course, and we are

15 authorising people to act now in the capacity of

16 designated officers in child protection.

17 MR SHELDON: I see.

18 MR KELLEHER: We now need to roll out to uniform inspectors

19 another package. We have to retailor that because the

20 child protection officers that we are dealing with have

21 had some sort of foundation training and have a good

22 background and knowledge of child protection matters.

23 Uniform inspectors would not have the same depth of

24 knowledge.

25 Additionally we want to train every uniform and

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1 divisional detective officer in the basics of this

2 particular aspect and some other child protection

3 issues. So there are other matters under development.

4 MR SHELDON: I see. Thank you. The situation as

5 I understand it now is that one of your principal

6 concerns is to make sure there are enough officers doing

7 police work rather than being on training courses?

8 MR KELLEHER: It is a -- I have two concerns, actually. One

9 is the course aspect and making sure that the business

10 does not collapse as a result of overtraining, which has

11 always been a fear, but I think our training plan has

12 coped for that. The other of course is my police

13 officers spending too much time in committee rooms in

14 different social services offices because the

15 consultancy group work that I had done on workload study

16 indicates the average CPT in London takes in 12 new

17 cases a week but goes to 50 meetings, 41 of them with

18 our partners in case conferences of one description or

19 another.

20 MR SHELDON: How are you managing to keep that sort of --

21 MR KELLEHER: I cannot. It goes to fundamentals of the

22 individual agreements and it is one of the issues

23 I would hope this Inquiry would be addressing in making

24 its recommendations about how we approach child

25 protection generally.

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1 MR SHELDON: So you want a recommendation that means that

2 your officers do not have to spend too much time in

3 committee rooms in social services?

4 MR KELLEHER: I think there are far more effective ways of

5 doing business for many of the meetings that go on,

6 although I accept the need that there must be a level of

7 conferencing.

8 MR SHELDON: The next topic, detectives on those teams. You

9 say that when you took over SO5 about 30 per cent of the

10 workforce were officers with full CID training?

11 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, sir.

12 MR SHELDON: That in your judgment was too few?

13 MR KELLEHER: Considering we investigate 14 per cent of the

14 sexual offences reported to the Metropolitan Police,

15 I considered it was, particularly as some teams did not

16 have detectives.

17 MR SHELDON: That 30 per cent as I understand it was

18 randomly spread, so that some teams could have none.

19 Haringey for example was one?

20 MR KELLEHER: I think when I took over there were five,

21 including Haringey.

22 MR SHELDON: Five including Haringey that did not have any

23 detectives?

24 MR KELLEHER: The other issue was some of those that did

25 have detectives, it might be the detective inspector and

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1 one other, so what about resilience?

2 MR SHELDON: So if you have 30 per cent overall and you have

3 say five teams with none then that must mean that some

4 of the teams were up around the sort of 50/50 level that

5 DSC Griffiths said was aspirational?

6 MR KELLEHER: Yes, I would say some were about 40, 45 per

7 cent.

8 MR SHELDON: So this is an area where if you were selective

9 in the CPTs you looked at, you could get a misleading

10 impression?

11 MR KELLEHER: Indeed. Dip sampling would throw you

12 completely out.

13 MR SHELDON: Because you may find if I am aiming 50/50 -- we

14 will come on to that -- and I happen to go to team X and

15 they are almost up to that, I could make the mistake of

16 thinking that was representative and that there was not

17 a problem, whereas if I had gone to team Y I would have

18 found none?

19 MR KELLEHER: Absolutely.

20 MR SHELDON: And the South was reasonably well off in this

21 respect, was it not?

22 MR KELLEHER: And the South West. And in fact one of the

23 North West teams, the Hillingdon team had about

24 40 per cent.

25 MR SHELDON: To what extent was that, as far as you were

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1 able to ascertain, an accident of circumstance and to

2 what extent was it the result of successful policies of

3 detective recruitment in some areas as opposed to

4 others?

5 MR KELLEHER: As I said to you earlier, all this was about

6 or below the horizon before I took over. A lot of this

7 was something of a shock to me.

8 MR SHELDON: The reason I ask is that the way in which it

9 might be thought that this issue has been presented in

10 some of the evidence that we have heard is that for the

11 CP teams with which we are concerned it is simply

12 a problem without a solution: there were not enough

13 detectives, there was no detective training school to

14 train any up, you could not get people to apply and it

15 is not advisable to force people. So what can we do, to

16 paraphrase? Whereas I wonder the extent to which your

17 finding, showing that there were some teams properly

18 staffed with detectives, shows that it was not incapable

19 of solution and that some areas had solved it?

20 MR KELLEHER: The teams that -- take the Hillingdon team for

21 instance. That is a North West one. I think I ought to

22 concentrate on the credit side of the balance sheet

23 here. The detective inspector there had been in post

24 for a number of years, was a long-serving member of the

25 CID and was able to attract detectives to come to work

225



1 for him as an individual. I guess the better teams,

2 probably the most resourced teams, probably that worked.

3 But also there was a matter of pastoral care as

4 well. The South East, for instance, Mr Griffiths had

5 ensured it had a chief inspector running it for child

6 protection teams and those levels frankly never dropped

7 below 30 per cent, which was his aspirational model as

8 you understand, although he and I agree 50 per cent is

9 the very minimum we ought to be looking at now.

10 MR SHELDON: Which would indicate that had different

11 policies been followed, for example in North West OCU,

12 then we might not have seen Haringey in such a poor

13 position so far as this is concerned.

14 MR KELLEHER: I think that is probably right.

15 MR SHELDON: You say that your objective is to have 70 per

16 cent trained detectives on the CP teams, and as

17 I understand your second statement, there are currently

18 plans in place that will achieve 62 per cent by the end

19 of this year or thereabouts.

20 MR KELLEHER: In fact with the news from Friday about the

21 training of the sergeants, that will take me up to

22 69 per cent, if everything works out, all things being

23 equal.

24 MR SHELDON: Now Mr Griffiths said 50/50 is aspirational,

25 Day 49, page 189 sir. He said:

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1 "It is the aspirational target I have set for SO5

2 now and Derrick Keheller is charged with achieving that

3 target."

4 Now you will exceed that target by the end of this

5 year, as you say. Is there any chance you have too many

6 detectives on the teams?

7 MR KELLEHER: I do not think so. It is a target to aim for.

8 If it was an easy target, I could achieve it, but what

9 will that prove? I need to keep -- I think one of the

10 reasons for the 70 per cent, I want to turn it into

11 substantially a detective branch, because I heard you

12 cross-examining obviously Mr Kendrick earlier on around

13 the subject of image.

14 We now have an opportunity to turn that completely

15 round. We are now in the Serious Crime Group of

16 specialist operations. It is an aspirational career

17 goal of detectives in the Metropolitan Police to serve

18 in specialist operations. It is seen as a better place

19 to work, it is seen as more kudos. I want to turn it

20 into a substantially detective branch as part of the

21 image and to capitalise on that.

22 MR SHELDON: Do you have DAC Griffiths' support in that?

23 MR KELLEHER: I think he does not believe I will achieve it

24 in terms of the 70 per cent but I have his broad support

25 in my aspiration to change the image.

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1 MR SHELDON: I see. But your understanding of his view on

2 this subject is that when he says 50/50 is aspirational,

3 what he is in fact saying is, "50 per cent or better is

4 aspirational, and I certainly have no objection to you

5 Mr Kelleher getting as far up as you can"?

6 MR KELLEHER: He has given me freedom to write these plans.

7 MR SHELDON: The status problem that you have just alluded

8 to and that was dealt with with Mr Kendrick, what is the

9 situation as far as that is concerned now?

10 MR KELLEHER: I think it is largely improved. They have

11 resources, training is coming on-line. Publicity,

12 I have been generating a lot of publicity. We have been

13 running seminars, multi-agency seminars, seminars for

14 our staff. It has raised the profile considerably and

15 I am confident that we have moved a considerable way in

16 image terms.

17 MR SHELDON: You are of the school of thought, as

18 I understand this -- and you will appreciate having read

19 the evidence that this is another subject upon which we

20 have had a range of opinion -- you are of the school of

21 thought that the child protection teams have suffered

22 from an image problem or a status problem within the Met

23 historically that has gone up to fairly recently times,

24 is that right?

25 MR KELLEHER: The perception of the staff I have inherited

228



1 is that is the case. I was not aware of it before

2 I went into this particular area in 2000. I think

3 generally speaking the problem, the main problem that

4 stops good quality investigators going into child

5 protection is it is an incredibly difficult subject to

6 investigate. Trying to pry open the truth, get to the

7 truth of something that has happened behind closed doors

8 with the dynamics of a family is one of the most

9 difficult things I have ever investigated in my 31 years

10 police service, most of it in the CID.

11 MR SHELDON: You think people may be put off by the

12 difficulty of it?

13 MR KELLEHER: I think the fact that it is continually

14 dealing with child abuse is another barrier and I think

15 other people are put off by an image of -- some of these

16 expressions in the Inspectorate report I had never heard

17 of, but I was aware of a perception that they seemed to

18 spend most of their days around Social Services' office

19 drinking coffee. The consultancy group report may say

20 there is some truth in that.

21 MR SHELDON: I am just looking at what you said in an

22 interview you gave to The Job newspaper on

23 2nd November 2001, and maybe they have misquoted you,

24 but they say:

25 "SO5 Detective Chief Superintendent Kelleher said

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1 there had been a widely held perception that child

2 protection sat out beyond the fringes of real police

3 work but the formation of the specialist OCU recognised

4 the seriousness of these crimes."

5 It seems to suggest not that people thought, "Gosh,

6 it is so difficult, I am not sure whether I can manage",

7 but that in fact it is not real police work at all.

8 MR KELLEHER: I think as I have taken this job on and talked

9 to other people I have realised that there are a range

10 of perceptions out there and I had to deal with them all

11 in that particular interview.

12 MR SHELDON: And the increase of detective presence on the

13 teams is at least one antidote to that, is it?

14 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

15 MR SHELDON: And it is that thinking which has motivated

16 your move to the awarding of branch detective status?

17 MR KELLEHER: Yes, and that was to send a signal to the

18 staff that I actually appreciated the tough job they

19 were doing, and when senior management actually acceded

20 to that as well, that was a further signal from the top

21 which I actually think heralded the shift of resources

22 as well.

23 MR SHELDON: Turning now to staffing. You say,

24 paragraph 64, statement 1, that you have a general

25 perception that CPTs were understaffed. That was in the

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1 middle of last year you wrote that. You commissioned

2 a review, I understand it, to see what the picture was

3 like with regard to workload specifically; is that

4 right?

5 MR KELLEHER: Yes.

6 MR SHELDON: Turning to paragraph 24 of your second

7 statement, we can see some indication of the findings

8 that have been made and as I understand it one of the

9 solutions you have come up with has been larger teams.

10 MR KELLEHER: That is correct.

11 MR SHELDON: Just to see if I have understood the rationale

12 for that properly. It is that, is it, within a larger

13 team you can cover the peaks and troughs of demand more

14 efficiently, and you can cover for sickness and absence?

15 MR KELLEHER: The teams are too small. Six or eight people

16 working together, one is on annual leave, somebody goes

17 sick, somebody is on maternity leave and you have to

18 accept I have a large number of women in my workforce,

19 44.5 per cent of my police officers are female officers,

20 a number of them young mothers. So all these things

21 play into the resilience.

22 So the few that are left behind a lot of work is

23 still coming in has to be done. It puts pressure on

24 them. Larger teams will build in more resilience and

25 I think there is an economy of scale of having the same

231



1 numbers of staff but together operating effectively.

2 MR SHELDON: There is the issue of managing your available

3 resources more effectively in the way that you have

4 described, but you also came to the view that you needed

5 more bodies as well.

6 MR KELLEHER: Absolutely.

7 MR SHELDON: You quote Mr Copson's research that CPTs lost

8 about 13.5 per cent of their workforce following the

9 MacPherson Inquiry.

10 MR KELLEHER: I have also put a rider on that that I cannot

11 find the documentary evidence. What I can say is that

12 when I came to take this post over there was

13 a 14.5 per cent vacancy factor across the 27 teams.

14 MR SHELDON: We need to add that, do we, if Mr Copson is

15 right, do we need to add that to the deletion of posts?

16 MR KELLEHER: I cannot find evidence of the deletion of

17 posts, that is the problem. I have been researching it

18 in the last couple of months in preparing for this day,

19 and frankly I cannot find that evidence anywhere. What

20 I can find is a 14.5 per cent vacancy factor.

21 MR SHELDON: I see.

22 MR KELLEHER: The money was there for the people, the people

23 were not. In devolved budgeting, the budget will

24 include X amount of money for police officers and civil

25 staff. I found the money when I took over for

232



1 additional staff, and indeed I went on to recruit

2 a total of the 14.5 per cent and beyond and in fact

3 a total of 85 officers were recruited, we lost 30

4 through natural wastage and 43 of those were detectives

5 and 42 uniform officers.

6 MR SHELDON: So there are two possibilities, are

7 there: either, Mr Copson is right, CPTs lost

8 13.5 per cent of their officers following MacPherson,

9 added to which is a 14.5 per cent vacancy rate. Or

10 Mr Copson is wrong, and the CPTs did not lose officers

11 after MacPherson, but in any event they were not able to

12 fill all the posts they had to the tune of 14.5 per cent

13 deficit so it comes to more or less the same thing.

14 MR KELLEHER: The truth of it I cannot bottom out.

15 MR SHELDON: So is 14.5 the best way, 14.5 plus 13.5 the

16 worst way?

17 MR KELLEHER: Yes, but again I stress I cannot find any

18 minutes around that decision that Mr Copson refers to.

19 My source is Mr Copson who was tasked by DAC Howlett to

20 undertake this piece of work.

21 MR SHELDON: That is perhaps something for Miss Howlett to

22 talk to us about because I think she recalls what she

23 says the plundering of child protection at that stage.

24 MR KELLEHER: I think you will find the situation exactly as

25 I just described it.

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1 MR SHELDON: As far as new bodies within child protection

2 teams is concerned, you have as I understand it bid

3 successfully for a new major investigation team?

4 MR KELLEHER: And they are in place and working and removing

5 work from child protection teams. Because one of the

6 other factors in the overwork, they were taking on

7 historical -- complex abuse inquiries into children's

8 homes. One team was struggling with one case of over

9 200 victims as well as their everyday work. I have

10 removed all that from the teams and that is part of

11 making the difference.

12 MR SHELDON: So that is another 16 officers on that major

13 investigation team.

14 MR KELLEHER: Plus Mr Griffiths allowed me to have

15 transferred to my strength the officers from the area

16 major investigation teams that were doing the additional

17 complex abuse inquiries, that was Mapperton, Radcliffe

18 and Middleton. So in total with that 16 it is I think

19 48 or thereabouts.

20 MR SHELDON: You got the extra DCI as we discussed earlier.

21 MR KELLEHER: And the training unit extra four.

22 MR SHELDON: There are eight staff to man the 24-hour crime

23 operation unit.

24 MR KELLEHER: That is in the next financial year.

25 MR SHELDON: We have another 32 civilian care officers at

234



1 executive officer grade.

2 MR KELLEHER: Mrs Howlett will have to deal with that

3 because we are awaiting the result of the bid but

4 I understand that has been successful.

5 MR SHELDON: You think you will get them?

6 MR KELLEHER: Yes.

7 MR SHELDON: So we are up to about 93 extra officers.

8 MR KELLEHER: And I have been allowed to go over and above

9 my establishment of 339 -- I did not realise you were

10 going to do this piece of maths. My police officer

11 establishment currently including the training unit and

12 the major inquiry team, plus the additional CID officers

13 at senior rank, is 339. I have had up to 369,

14 I currently have 365 or thereabouts police officers and

15 I have just been authorised last week to recruit another

16 four detectives for two particular teams.

17 MR SHELDON: The point you made earlier was that is an

18 increase of a scale that is sustainable within the

19 Metropolitan Police without leaving a hole somewhere

20 else.

21 MR KELLEHER: Yes, it does. It links to the growth that we

22 have had this year and the anticipated growth of up to

23 another thousand officers next year.

24 MR SHELDON: And it indicates, does it not, that despite the

25 fact that it is not of a scale to knock a hole in the

235



1 Metropolitan Police's resources elsewhere, it is still

2 substantial, and would indicate that if that is the

3 number of officers you feel you need to do the job

4 properly, you must have had far too few to do the job

5 properly before.

6 MR KELLEHER: I think that would follow.

7 MR SHELDON: Lastly the question of resources. You say that

8 an effective information system is crucial in tracking

9 problem families around London. I do not want to deal

10 with the various IT improvements as they are set out in

11 detail in your statements, and we can look at them

12 there, but one of the surprises perhaps that has been

13 thrown up by the evidence in this case is that Haringey

14 Child Protection Team in late July 1999 did not realise

15 that Victoria had been subject to police protection in

16 Brent about ten days earlier. Now, will the new

17 system -- and it may be that this is impossible to

18 answer this question simply and if so then

19 I apologise -- will the new system enable that sort of

20 thing to happen?

21 MR KELLEHER: Yes it will.

22 MR SHELDON: Can you explain how?

23 MR KELLEHER: Because there will be one database which child

24 protection teams, community safety units which deal with

25 domestic violence, officers dealing with missing persons

236



1 and a lot of those absconders from care et cetera, the

2 prostitute index which -- they are mothers with --

3 prostitutes who are mothers and the children of --

4 children who are prostitutes will all be in the one

5 index and system. That will be accessible by all

6 Metropolitan police officers 24 hours a day, and as soon

7 as an entry is made on it it is immediately searchable.

8 It has a sounds alike system, so if there is

9 a misspelling of the name and if there is an address

10 that should pick it up as well.

11 We need it for a number of reasons, not just in

12 tracking families that move completely from borough to

13 borough, but also in this day and age we are dealing

14 with a number of families that have split, so part of

15 the week a child may be living in one part of London in

16 one borough and it may be with the other parent in

17 another part of the London for the rest of it, so if

18 incidents come to light we need to tie those up as well.

19 MR SHELDON: It is one thing to have this system available

20 and a system in place for its exchange but you need

21 protocols in place to ensure that it is exchanged. Do

22 you have that?

23 MR KELLEHER: Could you be more specific than that?

24 MR SHELDON: You have the hardware or software that is

25 necessary. You have the information available but you

237



1 would still need some sort of protocol or some sort of

2 instruction to the individual officers which would

3 ensure that they do exchange this sort of information?

4 MR KELLEHER: Just picking it off at the different levels of

5 the organisation. When MERLIN comes in there will be

6 full training provided to every police officer and the

7 relevant members of civil staff that would have cause to

8 use it, so they would get that in their instruction.

9 All members of the CPTs would in fact get that as well.

10 MR SHELDON: We can deal very quickly with the other

11 resource issues or the tangible ones. I think the

12 situation now is you have gone up from about four cars

13 to 32, is that correct?

14 MR KELLEHER: I think it is 31 now yes.

15 MR SHELDON: All your teams now have Met radios?

16 MR KELLEHER: Yes.

17 MR SHELDON: They all have Otis, now that Ealing has it, and

18 we can look at your statement for the various child

19 protection teams that have had a refit or been given new

20 accommodation.

21 What I wonder, Mr Kelleher, and it may be you do too

22 having heard the evidence of other people, and

23 Mr Kendrick said something similar today, is the extent

24 to which any of these innovations, impressive as they

25 may be thought to be, would have made a difference in

238



1 Victoria's case. The reason I ask that is if one

2 subscribes to the theory or the point of view that what

3 should have been done in Victoria's case where as

4 I think Mr Copson put it "basic parts of a cop's job" or

5 as Mr Griffiths put it, "in the A to Z of investigations

6 they did not get to B", you cannot make police work

7 idiot-proof one would imagine. We have heard

8 Mr Kendrick say it had nothing to do with radios or

9 resources. Would all these innovations and these

10 improvements that you have described and the Met has

11 spent so much money on have prevented what happened in

12 Victoria's case?

13 MR KELLEHER: Not at all.

14 MR SHELDON: So why have you done it?

15 MR KELLEHER: I have done it because this is an area that

16 needs to be resourced. I have to look wider than just

17 Victoria's case, at every aspect of work that child

18 protection teams are operating, responding to. I also

19 think that we need to learn the lessons of this and one

20 of the lessons is that we need to have every member

21 of -- police member of a Child Protection Team to have

22 additional training to make sure it does not happen

23 again, that they actually get to think like a detective

24 and that they actually do the basics of investigation.

25 I want to make sure that is reinforced home. I want

239



1 my operational doctrine reinforced home. There is child

2 protection training and continuous training at that,

3 because you cannot have a one-off and leave it there,

4 there must be additional training. I guess that is why

5 we have done it.

6 MR SHELDON: But we cannot make the assumption that because

7 these changes have been done after Victoria's case and

8 to some extent driven by it, that it reflects the

9 Metropolitan Police's assessment of what went wrong in

10 her individual case.

11 MR KELLEHER: Sorry, could you repeat that question?

12 MR SHELDON: Yes. It may be thought and it may have been

13 suggested by other officers that the real problem

14 illustrated in Victoria's case is not the incompetence

15 or individual failures on the part of junior officers,

16 but was symptomatic of a lack of resources for child

17 protection teams, things like inadequate accommodation,

18 not enough cars et cetera et cetera.

19 Now, witnesses have -- senior officers have

20 encouraged us against that view. You heard Mr Kendrick

21 encourage us against it earlier today when he was

22 questioned by Mr Thwaites who said quite frankly all

23 these things would not have made a whit of difference in

24 Victoria's case because it had nothing to do with radios

25 and accommodation and priorities and status and all the

240



1 other things we have been talking about.

2 Now what we should not do, you say, is look at your

3 improvements to the system since then, dealing as they

4 do with accommodation, status et cetera, et cetera and

5 say, "Ah, that is a recognition by the Metropolitan

6 Police that these sort of things did play a role in

7 Victoria's case"?

8 MR KELLEHER: I think it did play a role in the fact that

9 the role of police and Social Services became very

10 blurred. An activity I would expect a police officer to

11 carry out was being carried out by other people.

12 Information was being fed back to that police officer in

13 a hearsay format. Whereas I would expect that police

14 officer to go and make those inquiries herself, with

15 a view to establishing facts.

16 Additionally, you need to speak to medical

17 practitioners directly because very often they need the

18 full surrounding circumstances from your investigation

19 in order to be able to interpret the injury in the first

20 place, such as bringing belt buckles back, that sort of

21 basic thing. I would say it is that blurring of role

22 that is my personal opinion is where this has gone

23 wrong, which is why I have been paying so much attention

24 to the protocols and training and why I am spending

25 a lot of money examining that particular area.

241



1 The initial read of the draft consultant's report on

2 protocols for instance shows there are lots of gaps in

3 the local protocols as bench marked against Working

4 Together, for instance. So I actually think that what

5 we need to do is make sure the multi-agency training is

6 right, and I am not sure that was right.

7 MR SHELDON: But what we do have now you would say is

8 a child protection service within the Met in London that

9 is better resourced, better trained, better organised,

10 better equipped. What we do not have is one that can

11 guard against the sort of individual failings that have

12 been revealed by this case?

13 MR KELLEHER: I would disagree with that in the sense that

14 the manual introduces different working practices which

15 were not there then. If we take the risk assessment

16 process for instance, a section of the manual actually

17 makes people more inquisitive than they perhaps were in

18 this particular case, or considerably more, I hope. And

19 we set out the procedures within that manual, within my

20 professional standards which should address those issues

21 that have arisen in this particular case. We have

22 impressed this upon supervisors in order to make sure

23 that they are enforcing these standards.

24 MR SHELDON: I see. Thank you. One last point of detail.

25 We have a report in volume 44, our bundle, done by

242



1 a Mr Wheeler of Highgate CPT that is dated

2 8th March 2000. You may have seen it. It was his

3 review.

4 MR KELLEHER: I have seen it.

5 MR SHELDON: He was reviewing an office of which he was the

6 line manager at the critical time. Did you ask him to

7 do that review?

8 MR KELLEHER: No sir.

9 MR SHELDON: Do you know who did?

10 MR KELLEHER: I do not sir.

11 MR SHELDON: Do you think he should have done it?

12 MR KELLEHER: No sir.

13 MR SHELDON: Do you know why one was not done at Brent?

14 MR KELLEHER: I do not know.

15 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Thwaites, I think in fairness to you,

16 unless you have a very brief --

17 MR THWAITES: Very brief. Five minutes.

18 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes indeed. I wanted to be absolutely fair

19 to you Mr Thwaites but, as ever ...

20 MR THWAITES: Mr Kelleher, could you have please, if you

21 have not already, your report of 14th September in

22 volume 45 at page 006. I think it is being brought to

23 you. Can you help us as to this: whether at the time

24 you wrote that report you had seen the internal

25 Inspectorate report to which extensive reference was

243



1 made this morning, the one commissioned by Mr Kendrick?

2 MR KELLEHER: I saw it about this time. I cannot give you

3 an exact date on that, sir.

4 MR THWAITES: Because the picture painted in that report

5 cannot easily be reconciled with the conclusions that

6 you come to about serious underresourcing, can they?

7 MR KELLEHER: No.

8 MR THWAITES: They are asking you if you took account of

9 that Inspectorate report when you wrote your report and

10 whether you addressed its conclusions in the light of

11 your own.

12 MR KELLEHER: No, I do not think -- I am not sure at what

13 point I saw the Inspectorate report.

14 MR THWAITES: The two do not live easy together do they?

15 MR KELLEHER: Substantially they do.

16 MR THWAITES: May I take you in the report to page 009,

17 please, on CPT resourcing. You have been asked about

18 this so I can be quite brief about it. You incorporate,

19 if I can just read the first few lines, what Mr Copson

20 has reported to you:

21 "Local authorities are aware and concerned about

22 falling resources in child protection teams. Detective

23 Superintendent Copson, my deputy, has undertaken

24 research that shows over the last 12 to 24 months

25 13.5 per cent of the CPTs establishment has been

244



1 removed."

2 Can we just pause there. So that is really the

3 period since the Inspectorate report of May to October

4 1998 that reported in November 1998. So in other words,

5 it appears that Mr Copson is reporting from independent

6 research carried out by him that there has been

7 a reduction in the establishment by 13.5 per cent in the

8 previous two years.

9 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, sir.

10 MR THWAITES: Now, if I go on:

11 "We have tried unsuccessfully to trace the

12 documentation establishing a case for this and

13 evaluating the effects of it."

14 And you confirmed I think in your evidence that you

15 did look for evidence.

16 MR KELLEHER: We did and we could not find it.

17 MR THWAITES: Sir, this description of the reduction in

18 establishment or resources by 13.5 per cent is

19 anecdotal.

20 MR KELLEHER: It is, sir.

21 MR THWAITES: And it may be that it has been confused by the

22 picture that you found of 14 per cent shortage of staff

23 for which money was available, correct?

24 MR KELLEHER: Correct.

25 MR THWAITES: Indicating that there was no underresourcing

245



1 issue on staffing because the money was available.

2 MR KELLEHER: That is correct. I did not know that at the

3 time I wrote this. That is I discovered later.

4 MR THWAITES: And that simply what has happened is that

5 through natural wastage which would include people

6 transferring themselves elsewhere of their own volition,

7 retirement, sickness and so on, that the number of

8 people has been reduced?

9 MR KELLEHER: That is correct, and the anecdotal evidence

10 that I personally received was that people were replaced

11 as they left, so that would tie in exactly with what you

12 are saying.

13 MR THWAITES: And is a different position from where the

14 organisation itself was denuding CPTs of personnel,

15 which does not appear to be supported by any evidence

16 found to date by Mr Copson.

17 MR KELLEHER: Or myself or Mrs Howlett.

18 MR THWAITES: I follow, thank you. If I can go to page 011,

19 please, in the same report. You also report I think in

20 relation to area child protection committees that you

21 have anecdotal evidence -- I am going to the

22 antepenultimate paragraph, the last sentence:

23 "I have received anecdotal evidence from CPT

24 detective inspectors that they are embarrassed at the

25 inadequacy of our contributions."

246



1 That is a reference to the financial contributions

2 made by the MPS to the ACPCs?

3 MR KELLEHER: That is indeed correct, sir.

4 MR THWAITES: Yes. And of course the Inquiry will be

5 concerned to distinguish, as you are, Mr Kelleher,

6 between approvable facts and anecdotal evidence in both

7 these instances?

8 MR KELLEHER: That is correct sir.

9 MR THWAITES: And wherever else they find them. One final

10 matter please I would like to ask you about that does

11 not relate to any evidence you have given so far but to

12 an inquiry made this morning about whether the police

13 were proactive in relation to child protection issues.

14 Can you help us at all about that?

15 MR KELLEHER: The level of 78, forms 78 which are the

16 referral forms I referred to earlier, did not see

17 a seasonal drop that was referred to earlier. Indeed,

18 sitting here trying to recollect the crime figures, but

19 they seem to run at a fairly steady level month to month

20 so I do not believe that we were failing in our duty to

21 deal with matters coming to the attention of the

22 Metropolitan Police Service during school holidays.

23 MR THWAITES: What is the annual number you have been

24 examining by references to form 78 which would indicate

25 that frontline policing has brought in these cases of

247



1 suspected child abuse or raising child protection

2 issues?

3 MR KELLEHER: We had over 80,000 reports came into our CPTs

4 last year, sir.

5 MR THWAITES: So that is about 6 and a half thousand a month

6 that the police are discovering for themselves without

7 reference by other agencies out of school or

8 Social Services?

9 MR KELLEHER: That is correct sir.

10 MR THWAITES: Just to give a snapshot picture. That is all

11 I wanted to ask, sir.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Kelleher just a couple of questions if

13 I may. First of all you mentioned that you issued a

14 one-page note to your staff.

15 MR KELLEHER: I did include it in my second statement.

16 THE CHAIRMAN: Indeed. I want to make sure I have it right.

17 Is the page-bundle 45H, 302.501? If you just identify

18 it just to make sure I am on the right place.

19 MR KELLEHER: Yes, sir, that is it.

20 THE CHAIRMAN: I thought it was but I wanted to make sure.

21 These bullet points, if I can put it that way, are the

22 steps that you have decided are essential in order to

23 safeguard children in future.

24 MR KELLEHER: They are critical success factors so far as

25 I am concerned, sir.

248



1 THE CHAIRMAN: Splendid. I would not take you through each

2 one of them but if you could just tell us briefly: if

3 Victoria was admitted to hospital today in the

4 circumstances that she was admitted, what steps would

5 you expect the police to take?

6 MR KELLEHER: I would expect them to physically go to the

7 hospital to speak to the staff personally, including the

8 staff that were making the diagnosis, to ensure that

9 they had the fullest background history. I would expect

10 them before going to hospital to speak to the informant

11 who actually brought the matter to attention of the

12 police service, in which case a further historical data

13 may be established, full range of searches on our

14 databases so that we had a full family history. To

15 inform the medical practitioner fully about all of these

16 circumstances, and to ensure that any injuries were

17 noted in a police incident report book and any

18 statements made by doctors or other people were

19 recorded, either straight away in an incident report

20 book or by way of witness statement.

21 I would expect consideration to be given to police

22 photography, as opposed to the medical photographer.

23 Shall I stop there sir, is that far enough?

24 THE CHAIRMAN: That sounds comprehensive, says he from a lay

25 point of view, but I understand the line that you are

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1 taking. We heard evidence earlier on that seemed to

2 suggest that police officers feel somewhat inhibited in

3 these sort of circumstances and have to wait until

4 either a doctor has given a definite diagnosis or that

5 Social Services are "seen as the lead agency". Are you

6 suggesting that there is something different now in the

7 approach to child protection than happened Victoria's

8 case?

9 MR KELLEHER: I think the critical difference is that the

10 police officers realise they have to carry out

11 a criminal investigation, that they are the lead

12 authority when it comes to a criminal investigation.

13 They have to work with their partners, they have to

14 exchange evidence and it has to be a joint strategy

15 because Social Services have a duty under the

16 Children Act to actually ensure the welfare of the child

17 and its development and safety is protected. But

18 primarily my concern around this case is that the police

19 officers did not conduct a proper investigation.

20 THE CHAIRMAN: And are you aware of any inhibiting factors

21 that make that difficult for police officers that you

22 would like to share with us, or are you of a mind that

23 there are no inhibiting factors?

24 MR KELLEHER: I think there are. I think in dealing with

25 the medical evidence, we are used -- I think it is

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1 because we rely on doctors personally ourselves for our

2 everyday well-being as individuals, we like to think

3 they actually know what they are talking about. And

4 I think we put people like that on a pedestal and we

5 take scientists, doctors, other professionals' words at

6 face value often when perhaps we should have challenged

7 them and I think in this particular case, in looking at

8 the Central Middlesex Hospital, I try to rationalise

9 what has happened. I can rationalise to myself why we

10 did not do what we ought to have done, at the Central

11 Middlesex Hospital. I think we accepted the word that

12 this was not an injury, and it was scabies. And I think

13 the additional failure to gather further information did

14 not allow us to correct that particular error.

15 THE CHAIRMAN: What I want to be clear about is are you

16 saying that within the current legislation there is no

17 reason at all why, when there is even an allegation of

18 a crime, it is for the police to conduct the inquiry and

19 not for other people?

20 MR KELLEHER: I said earlier there are two specific

21 processes. The Act lays out the action under

22 Section 47. I think the definition of "significant

23 harm" perhaps may cloud the issue when it comes to

24 a criminal investigation about who is the legal agency.

25 In this particular case when I looked at the

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1 strategy meeting at Haringey I felt there were a number

2 of actions generated. I perhaps would have felt happier

3 with terminology around, well, there are two plans

4 required here, one is the one for Section 47 or

5 a Section 17 if it was that, and the other is a clear

6 plan for the criminal investigation and these are the

7 clear objectives of those particular processes and this

8 is where we need to be joined up and this is where we

9 need to be operating separately for a clear

10 understanding.

11 THE CHAIRMAN: As a very experienced police officer, senior

12 police officer, are there any changes in the law that

13 you could recommend to the Inquiry that would enable you

14 to do your job more effectively?

15 MR KELLEHER: I think there is a valuable lesson to be

16 learned by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Prior

17 to its establishment as a statute book in 1984, every

18 police, every court, every lawyer had their own

19 interpretation of the law, as they continue to do

20 I guess to a certain extent, but now we actually have

21 codified in law what people should do in certain

22 circumstances, what the powers of the different agencies

23 are, and what the rights of people are.

24 I think it is important in the context of the Human

25 Rights Act that they are set out, spelt out so there is

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1 redress at law, civil law, criminal law even about -- or

2 in disciplinary matters, about the failure of standards

3 of conduct in an inquiry.

4 THE CHAIRMAN: That is very helpful. Thank you very much

5 indeed. Mr Sheldon?

6 MR SHELDON: Sir I have no further questions. Thank you

7 Mr Kelleher.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Kelleher for your evidence.

9 Ladies and gentlemen we will adjourn now until

10 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Thank you very much

11 indeed.

12 (5.00 pm)

13 (Hearing adjourned until 10 am the following day)

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