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Archived Transcript for 20 November 2001: Pages
1 to 50
1
1 Tuesday, 20th November 2001
2 (10.00 am)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
4 Mr Garnham.
5 MR GARNHAM: Good morning sir. Before we resume the
6 evidence from yesterday, three preliminary matters.
7 First of all, to report to those here that the video
8 examination of Mrs Viljoen was completed successfully
9 this morning and we now have that recorded on tape and
10 we will display it at a convenient moment. If we were
11 to be particularly fortunate and get through the other
12 witnesses today we might even take it today. It is the
13 sort of evidence that can be slotted in at a moment that
14 is convenient to all.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: I agree, thank you.
16 MR GARNHAM: Because we reappraised where we were getting
17 yesterday, Mr and Mrs Kimbidima who had been listed to
18 be heard today we have now put off. Their evidence is
19 of a type we can slot in again at a convenient moment
20 some time in the future.
21 The third preliminary matter is a plea from me. If
22 any of the interested parties have questions that they
23 would like us to put to Miss Arthurworrey on Thursday,
24 then can I please ask for sight of those questions as
25 soon as possible and by no later than today.
2
1 Miss Arthurworrey's evidence is lengthy and complicated
2 and it would make the task of building in suggested
3 questions much easier if I could see them a little
4 earlier than we have had of late.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr Sheldon.
6 MR SHELDON: Thank you. Could I recall Mr Bird, please.
7 PS RICHARD BIRD (continued)
8 MR SHELDON: Good morning Mr Bird. As I am sure you are
9 aware, you are still under the oath that you took
10 yesterday afternoon.
11 PS BIRD: Yes, sir.
12 MR SHELDON: Before resuming with the matters we started to
13 cover yesterday afternoon there are a couple of points
14 I wish to put to you arising from the evidence that you
15 gave, principally the questions of resources, training
16 and the manual.
17 You said yesterday that your view that the Child
18 Protection Manual was out of date stemmed from your
19 after the event reading of sets of minutes principally
20 which were not available to you at the time. Do you
21 recall that?
22 PS BIRD: I do recall that, yes.
23 MR SHELDON: Could you be shown volume 33A, please, page 75.
24 These are the minutes of a meeting of the 2 Area Crime
25 Operations Command Unit on 19th October 1999 at Bushey.
3
1 We can see under the list of those present that you were
2 there, is that right?
3 PS BIRD: Yes.
4 MR SHELDON: Over the page, there is a heading two-thirds of
5 the way down page 76, "CPT Manual." Do you see that?
6 PS BIRD: Yes.
7 MR SHELDON: Under that we see the following recorded:
8 "DI Superintendent Akers stated that this was
9 discharged today. There was a meeting today and the CPT
10 manual was discussed and because the CPT manual is old,
11 inaccurate and not user friendly a complete revamp will
12 be needed."
13 Given that you were at that meeting, you were
14 presumably aware at the time that the manual was out of
15 date?
16 PS BIRD: I realise that and I realise what it says there
17 I have no explanation why my memory did not remind
18 myself but when I was saying yesterday that my memory of
19 that came from the minutes that I had read subsequently,
20 that is what I believed. I have no idea why that did
21 not sit at the front of my head and why I did not
22 remember that point from that meeting.
23 MR SHELDON: Are the minutes of these type of meeting
24 circulated to all those present afterwards?
25 PS BIRD: Sometimes they are, sometimes they are given at
4
1 the next meeting. It all depends how efficient the
2 system has been.
3 MR SHELDON: You were not at the next meeting I think, is
4 that right?
5 PS BIRD: I do not recall being at the next meeting.
6 MR SHELDON: Do you recall whether you ever got sight of
7 these minutes?
8 PS BIRD: I have read the minutes and there is so much that
9 I have read, it all appears to blur into one. However,
10 I was not at the meeting. That item was obviously
11 spoken about but with the passage of time I certainly do
12 not recall the manual being out of date or being
13 discharged or put out of date at that time.
14 MR SHELDON: You also -- and this you have hinted at in the
15 answer you have just given -- you also said yesterday
16 that you were not aware that the manual had been
17 withdrawn at the time and that you continued to use it
18 after the 19th October in any event.
19 PS BIRD: That is correct.
20 MR SHELDON: We can see from those minutes that it would
21 appear that you did know that the manual had been
22 discharged at the time. That is right, is it not?
23 PS BIRD: I must have known it had been withdrawn but I just
24 did not give it any conscious thought.
25 MR SHELDON: Do you recall whether or not you relayed the
5
1 withdrawal of the manual back to the members of your
2 team after you left that meeting?
3 PS BIRD: I do not recall that I did.
4 MR SHELDON: Because that might potentially be quite
5 important, might it not, because you were the person at
6 the meeting, you were the one who was there when the
7 decision to withdraw the manual was taken and you
8 therefore would have been the one with the
9 responsibility to inform the rest of your team of that
10 fact and, if they were in ignorance of that, carried on
11 using the manual, that would be down to you, would it
12 not?
13 PS BIRD: I do not think I could argue that point, although
14 at the time it was not a conscious thought of mine.
15 MR SHELDON: I suggested yesterday in response to the point
16 you made that it was only after the event you became
17 aware that the CPT manual was out of date, that it would
18 be a pointless exercise to ask you to try and identify
19 those parts of the manual that you regarded as out of
20 date at the time. Do you recall that?
21 PS BIRD: Yes, I do.
22 MR SHELDON: Given what we now know, that you did seem to
23 know that the manual was out of date at the time, are
24 you able to direct us to those parts of the Child
25 Protection Manual which you say were out of date in
6
1 mid-1999?
2 PS BIRD: Not without going through it page by page, no,
3 sir.
4 MR SHELDON: It might be that the best way to deal with
5 that, Mr Bird, because this may be a matter that is of
6 concern to the Metropolitan Police, is that if we do not
7 go through it page by page now but you do give it some
8 consideration and let us have a schedule of those pages
9 or those sections which you regard as being out of date
10 as of mid-1999. Would you be able to assist us with
11 that?
12 PS BIRD: Subsequent to today, certainly.
13 MR SHELDON: Sir, with your permission that seems the most
14 sensible way of doing it rather than going through all
15 336 pages now.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: I am grateful to you Mr Bird.
17 MR SHELDON: You agreed yesterday Mr Bird that you did not
18 raise your concerns about understaffing and lack of
19 training at the DI's meeting that you were at on
20 19th October 1999; do you recall saying that?
21 PS BIRD: Yes I do.
22 MR SHELDON: It would be fair to say, would it not, that you
23 were unable to give any particularly clear explanation
24 for that and you did accept that it would have been
25 a golden opportunity for you to have done so given that
7
1 you did not often have the opportunity to go to those
2 meetings?
3 PS BIRD: I accept that, yes.
4 MR SHELDON: You also said that you did not feel intimidated
5 about raising those sort of concerns at DI meetings
6 because if it was something that you felt strongly about
7 you were content to pass your concerns up as well as
8 down?
9 PS BIRD: If it was appropriate at the time, yes, that is
10 correct.
11 MR SHELDON: Could you have a look at page 90 in that
12 bundle. This is another meeting of the 2 Area Crime
13 Operations Command Unit and we see from the list of
14 those present again that you were also there. Over the
15 page on to 91, resources and personnel were on the
16 agenda. Do you accept -- and you may want to take
17 a moment to glance through the minute if it is not
18 familiar to you -- do you accept that you said nothing
19 at that meeting about insufficient staffing levels on
20 the Haringey CPT?
21 PS BIRD: I do accept that, yes.
22 MR SHELDON: If we turn over to page 92, we see that item 8,
23 training, was on the agenda. Do you accept that you
24 said nothing in that meeting about lack of training
25 either for yourself or officers for whom you were
8
1 responsible?
2 PS BIRD: I do accept that, yes.
3 MR SHELDON: Back on to page 91, item 4, IT was on the
4 agenda. Do you accept that you said nothing in that
5 meeting about the lack of an Otis machine, or freezing
6 CRIS machines or any inadequacies with your IT?
7 PS BIRD: Yes, I accept that.
8 MR SHELDON: Are you able to explain why not?
9 PS BIRD: No, I am not sir.
10 MR SHELDON: Is it because you were not really concerned
11 about those matters as at the end of December 1999?
12 PS BIRD: I would have thought I would have been concerned
13 because they were matters that were arising daily.
14 However, it may be that I did not think it appropriate
15 at the time. In hindsight you are right, it would have
16 been an ideal opportunity to have raised them.
17 MR SHELDON: Can you think of any reason, given what you
18 said about not feeling intimidated about communicating
19 your concerns upwards if you felt it necessary, any
20 reason why it would not have been appropriate?
21 PS BIRD: I cannot at the moment, no. Nothing that springs
22 to mind. I do not remember what was happening at the
23 meetings at the time but clearly I have not said
24 anything and I have to accept that.
25 MR SHELDON: The point, as I am sure you are aware, Mr Bird,
9
1 and one that we may need your help on, is that you have
2 indicated in your statement that you had very serious
3 concerns about levels of staffing, levels of training
4 and resources within Haringey CPT at the time you were
5 working there. None of those concerns appear to have
6 been ventilated by you in either of the two meetings the
7 minutes of which we have examined. Can we be confident
8 therefore that the level of concern you express in your
9 statement is the level of concern you felt at the time
10 and not what you have subsequently come to feel?
11 PS BIRD: I believe that at the time these matters were
12 happening within the office, but I amongst the others
13 were in the office getting on with our job to the best
14 of our abilities, given the resources and the training
15 that we have had. Post the death of Victoria Climbie we
16 had two reviews which highlighted a lot of faults and it
17 may be that you are correct. A lot of what you read in
18 my statement has been given extra emphasis because of
19 what happened subsequent to that date.
20 MR SHELDON: Can we be confident that the emphasis on lack
21 of resources, training and supervision that you place in
22 your statement is not an attempt by you, and it has been
23 echoed by other members of your team, to excuse basic
24 failures of practice when dealing with Victoria's case?
25 PS BIRD: I do not think so. I think at the time we were in
10
1 that office everybody was in that office doing the best
2 they possibly could. These matters of training and IT
3 were highlighted before, we have highlighted them in the
4 reports of Mr Sterry and Mr Wheeler, and really
5 confirmed what everybody had known all along. However,
6 whilst you are there with your face to the coal face,
7 with your head down to the coal face, it is not always
8 apparent or appropriate that you should be raising your
9 voice with these concerns.
10 MR SHELDON: Why not?
11 PS BIRD: I think in hindsight that is a very good question
12 but a very easy question to ask and I certainly do not
13 have an answer to that.
14 MR SHELDON: We got to the point at the end of yesterday
15 evening of you very frankly and fairly saying that the
16 first criticism that I suggested to you, namely that you
17 failed adequately to supervise Karen Jones' handling of
18 the first referral about Victoria, was a justified one.
19 You recall that?
20 PS BIRD: Yes, I do.
21 MR SHELDON: Do you also recall saying that in accepting
22 that criticism you wanted to make it clear that you felt
23 that you were insufficiently trained and resourced to
24 enable you to do your supervisory job in the way you
25 would have wanted to have done it?
11
1 PS BIRD: I believe in hindsight things could have been
2 better, yes.
3 MR SHELDON: Could you have a look at volume 3, page 39. If
4 I just refer you back quickly Mr Bird to page 34, you
5 will see that this is the report of Operation Blue
6 Martin, an independent factual review of the police
7 investigations concerning Anna Kouao by the Haringey
8 Child Protection Team. You are familiar with this
9 document, I take it?
10 PS BIRD: Yes.
11 MR SHELDON: Could you have a look at page 39, please.
12 Third paragraph down:
13 "Put very bluntly, all three sergeants [of which you
14 were one] gave no active supervision to the
15 investigating officer probably because they did not have
16 the skill/training necessary to undertake this
17 operation."
18 Is that fair comment?
19 PS BIRD: I think put very bluntly we were doing the best we
20 could. Mr Sterry had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight
21 with his two investigating officers, 60 years of
22 detective experience. In his own words I believe we did
23 what we were capable of doing, and if we, for the lack
24 of skills and training necessary to undertake the
25 operation, did not do something then that was the
12
1 reason.
2 MR SHELDON: Did you personally give any active supervision
3 to Karen Jones in her handling of the first referral
4 about Victoria?
5 PS BIRD: I gave her advice when she came to speak to me,
6 yes.
7 MR SHELDON: On the one occasion on 4th August which you
8 refer to in your statement?
9 PS BIRD: Yes.
10 MR SHELDON: That was all?
11 PS BIRD: Yes.
12 MR SHELDON: Assume for the purposes of this question, and
13 this may not be a difficult thing for you to do, that
14 there were deficiencies in the way in which Karen Jones
15 conducted her investigation of that first referral. Who
16 should have picked those up?
17 PS BIRD: When I went into the CRIS report the next day that
18 would have been my responsibility. I read the entire
19 CRIS report and to my mind at the time it was being
20 conducted in a correct manner. If I felt that it had
21 not then I would have marked up the CRIS report with
22 instructions because that is the way that I carry on my
23 supervision. To try and illustrate that in a better
24 way, the very next crime that I entered that morning was
25 another one of Karen's and I read all of that and I left
13
1 instructions for her to complete various amounts of
2 work.
3 MR SHELDON: So if there were deficiencies in the way in
4 which the investigation had been conducted up to the
5 5th August, when you looked at the CRIS record, and that
6 those deficiencies were visible on the CRIS record, you
7 should have picked them up?
8 PS BIRD: I should have picked them up, yes.
9 MR SHELDON: Were there deficiencies visible on the CRIS
10 record as of 5th August, and you may need sight of it in
11 order to answer that. It is in volume 30, page 131.506.
12 Halfway down page 506, if you have that, we see an entry
13 by you: "Read and noted". That means, does it, that you
14 had read everything which had gone before?
15 PS BIRD: That is correct.
16 MR SHELDON: On the CRIS record?
17 PS BIRD: I was in the crime report, sir, six minutes.
18 I can be so precise about that because our internal
19 investigation team have had an audit done on that CRIS
20 report.
21 MR SHELDON: And that six minutes was sufficient, was it,
22 for you to familiarise yourself with all the information
23 that was on that report up to that entry we see on
24 page 506?
25 PS BIRD: Sufficient for me to thoroughly read it and
14
1 assimilate what I read.
2 MR SHELDON: Were you happy when you read that, and you
3 recorded "read and noted", that all that needed to have
4 been done up to that point had been done?
5 PS BIRD: It did seem to me that it was being conducted
6 correctly.
7 MR SHELDON: That was based upon the assumption, was it not,
8 that Karen Jones would be doing a home visit?
9 PS BIRD: Yes, it was.
10 MR SHELDON: Let us consider the basis for that assumption.
11 On 4th August you say in your statement Karen Jones came
12 to you and spoke to you about doing a home visit.
13 PS BIRD: Yes.
14 MR SHELDON: She indicated that she was concerned -- yes,
15 you had better have your statement in front of you --
16 about the risk of scabies, yes?
17 PS BIRD: Yes.
18 MR SHELDON: And in paragraph 25 of your statement you say
19 that you advised her to talk to Occupational Health.
20 PS BIRD: Yes, I did.
21 MR SHELDON: You can be sure that that conversation took
22 place on 4th August because of the CRIS record, can you?
23 PS BIRD: That would remind me that it did but I mean I can
24 remember the conversation.
25 MR SHELDON: You have an independent recollection of it?
15
1 PS BIRD: My office door was directly behind Karen's seat
2 and I sat nearest the door and the conversation took
3 place over the threshold.
4 MR SHELDON: Was it an unsolicited inquiry on the part of
5 Karen Jones or did you go up to her and ask her what she
6 was working on, if everything was all right?
7 PS BIRD: If my memory is correct, and I trust it is, she
8 was discussing it in the office and I intervened and
9 advised her that Occupational Health would give her
10 advice that she required.
11 MR SHELDON: Have a look back at page 506, please, and
12 consider whether or not what Karen Jones says at the top
13 of that page accords with your recollection of the
14 conversation. The first matter in which it may not
15 accord with the conversation as you describe it in your
16 statement is that she appears to be saying there that
17 she informed you of a decision that she had taken,
18 namely to talk to Health and Safety rather than asking
19 your advice. That seems to be how she is putting it, is
20 it not?
21 PS BIRD: It does, but that is not my recollection.
22 MR SHELDON: It is the last paragraph before the break in
23 the middle of the page:
24 "As I do not have a change of clothing or protective
25 clothing I will cancel the visit and advise the social
16
1 worker to do so as well until further information can be
2 obtained through our Health and Safety officer. I have
3 informed my senior officers at CPT."
4 It seems that she has taken the decision and is just
5 letting you know but your recollection is clear, is it,
6 that she was asking for your advice as to what to do?
7 PS BIRD: Karen Jones certainly asked for my advice.
8 MR SHELDON: She also says Health and Safety officer rather
9 than Occupational Health. Do you know firstly what the
10 correct term is?
11 PS BIRD: Now I would imagine it would be the Occupational
12 Health.
13 MR SHELDON: I see, but you were confident, were you, that
14 when you gave her the advice as to who to talk to you
15 were both clear as to who the individual was?
16 PS BIRD: Yes.
17 MR SHELDON: What was the basis for your belief that she
18 would do this home visit? Was it your conversation with
19 her, something she said or was it something you read in
20 the CRIS report?
21 PS BIRD: My belief that she would do it is that Karen Jones
22 was an experienced and well thought of officer. I had
23 no reason to disbelieve that she would not do it.
24 I think that is more to the point. There is no reason
25 to believe that any of my officers, if they said they
17
1 were going to do something, would not do it, and if that
2 was the case, that would be very serious.
3 MR SHELDON: I am not suggesting for the purposes of this
4 question that she was attempting to mislead you about
5 what she was planning to do. What I am trying to
6 understand is whether or not you got the impression that
7 she was going to go to the Occupational Health adviser
8 for advice as to whether to do the home visit or not, or
9 if she was going to do the home visit what precautions
10 she needed to take.
11 PS BIRD: My impression was that she was going to seek
12 advice about scabies and, having got the correct advice
13 and any protection that she needed, she would then go
14 and do it. Where she says in her crime report "I will
15 cancel the visit and advise the social worker until
16 further information can be obtained," I think the word
17 "cancel" really should have been "postpone".
18 MR SHELDON: I was wondering when I asked you what the basis
19 for your assumption that it was going to happen was,
20 whether you were influenced by the "until further
21 information can be obtained", which does suggest that it
22 is going to happen at some point in the future.
23 PS BIRD: That was my belief.
24 MR SHELDON: When you were advising Constable Jones about
25 how to handle this situation, what knowledge did you
18
1 have about the case that she was investigating?
2 PS BIRD: I had no knowledge.
3 MR SHELDON: Did she tell you anything about the purpose of
4 the home visit that she was considering undertaking?
5 PS BIRD: She may have done, I certainly -- I do not recall
6 it.
7 MR SHELDON: Because if she did not you would not have been
8 able, would you, to have undertaken any assessment of
9 the importance of a home visit in the context of the
10 investigation?
11 PS BIRD: I think at that point with 16 weeks in the office
12 it was quite unusual for somebody to approach me for
13 advice. I was invariably approaching the officers for
14 advice in my attempt to get my head round Child
15 Protection Procedures. I just assumed that she would
16 carry out this home visit and I believed at the time
17 that the Occupational Health was the correct place for
18 her to go.
19 MR SHELDON: The point I was making is that on the basis of
20 the knowledge you have at the time you were unable to
21 make any assessment as to whether or not a home visit
22 was vital in the context of this investigation or
23 entirely dispensable.
24 PS BIRD: I think that is probably a very fair assessment.
25 MR SHELDON: Which comes back to the question I was asking
19
1 earlier of how did you know or what was the basis for
2 your assumption that the home visit would take place,
3 because if it was entirely dispensable then any risk of
4 catching scabies might not be worth running. If it was
5 vital then it was clearly important that it did happen.
6 PS BIRD: I believe I would have left that to Karen rightly
7 or wrongly now. It was something that she was concerned
8 about. I gave her the advice on scabies and if she did
9 not feel the home visit was necessary she would not be
10 doing it.
11 MR SHELDON: But to advise properly on the merits of
12 undertaking a home visit and the precautions necessary
13 and the risks worth running in doing so, you would have
14 needed some understanding of where it fitted into the
15 investigation, would you not?
16 PS BIRD: I think I have to agree with you. I did not carry
17 out an independent risk assessment. However, at the
18 time it was not something that went through my mind.
19 Perhaps with a lot more experience under my belt I would
20 have thought of that.
21 MR SHELDON: It might be asking too much for you to have
22 done so in the context of some casual advice on the
23 basis of an overheard conversation, but the point it
24 illustrates nonetheless, is it not, is the difficulty of
25 this sort of ad hoc supervision which was in place in
20
1 the team at the time, because officers would be advising
2 on cases about which they had no background knowledge?
3 PS BIRD: I accept that and I believe I accepted that
4 earlier on, the system was not robust enough.
5 MR SHELDON: It is also illustrated by what happens later,
6 is it not, because at the time you were advising
7 Constable Jones and at the time you looked at the CRIS
8 report you expected that home visit to take place.
9 Somebody looking at the CRIS report later would not be
10 aware of that expectation and so might not be able to
11 pick up the fact that a home visit had not taken place
12 which should have done.
13 PS BIRD: I think now looking back at it my thought
14 processes should have been painted in a pen picture upon
15 the CRIS report, so that would have allowed the next
16 person, who could have been me but of course was not me,
17 to have gone in, seen what I had done and yes, you are
18 quite right, they would then have been able to have
19 acted upon it.
20 MR SHELDON: It may be a failure of you and you have been
21 very frank in your view on that but it is also a failure
22 of the system, is it not, the system of various officers
23 dipping in and out of cases at various times?
24 PS BIRD: I have to agree with you. I am sorry, I was
25 trying to think. I do not wish to excuse any failures
21
1 of my own and blame the system but we did not have
2 a system.
3 MR SHELDON: No, and that, going back to your evidence last
4 night, is one of the reasons why the new system that was
5 instituted of reporting sergeants being responsible for
6 the cases of the officers they are responsible for is
7 better.
8 PS BIRD: Far better.
9 MR SHELDON: Because you do know the background when you go
10 to look at a case and you do know what you are expecting
11 to have been done by the time you look at it again.
12 PS BIRD: It focuses your mind on a particular number of
13 cases.
14 MR SHELDON: That was the only involvement you had with
15 the July/August referral, was it not?
16 PS BIRD: That is correct, yes.
17 MR SHELDON: Turning to the November referral, the sexual
18 abuse allegation, you are aware I take it now, from your
19 reading of the case, of the fact of that referral but at
20 the time you had no involvement in it, is that right?
21 PS BIRD: I did not.
22 MR SHELDON: You never knew of it?
23 PS BIRD: I do recall a conversation in the office being
24 carried out regarding the letter and how the people that
25 were writing the letter were dragging their heels, but
22
1 that there was DI Howard and Sergeant Hodges who
2 appeared to be dealing with that at the time and I was
3 engaged with other business.
4 MR SHELDON: That was a conversation you overheard, or was
5 it Karen Jones coming to you for advice as to what to
6 do?
7 PS BIRD: It was Karen Jones in the office talking about the
8 letter to a group of people.
9 MR SHELDON: Because Karen Jones said yesterday, and it is
10 page 205 for your note sir, that her supervisors in the
11 office were aware of the difficulties she was having in
12 getting this letter off and the delays that that was
13 causing. Do I take it from your evidence that you were
14 vaguely aware of that but you thought other people were
15 dealing with her concerns in that respect?
16 PS BIRD: I think that is correct, yes.
17 MR SHELDON: If you had have known that Karen Jones was
18 experiencing difficulties in getting a letter translated
19 and that that was delaying her response to an allegation
20 of serious sexual abuse, what advice would you have
21 given her?
22 PS BIRD: At the time now because so much time has passed it
23 is very difficult to say, but I think in hindsight it
24 shouts out that we would have got in a motor car and
25 gone round and knocked on the door.
23
1 MR SHELDON: Exactly, forget about the letter, get down
2 there and find out what is going on. That is the advice
3 she should have been given, is it not?
4 PS BIRD: In hindsight I think that is correct, yes, that is
5 correct.
6 MR SHELDON: But so we are clear on this point, that is not
7 advice you were in a position to give, you say.
8 PS BIRD: I was on the periphery. It was purely -- I do
9 remember the letter being spoken about.
10 MR SHELDON: So if I was to put to you, as you know I must,
11 the criticism that you failed adequately to supervise
12 Karen Jones' handling of the November referral, what
13 would you say to that?
14 PS BIRD: I would accept it on the grounds that at the time,
15 with what we knew, with the lack of system in place in
16 the office, it has to be.
17 MR SHELDON: It is fair to suggest to you, is it not, in
18 view of the management structure and supervisory
19 structure as it then was, with supervising officers such
20 as yourself attempting to keep abreast of what is going
21 on in the office, that two months of inactivity on
22 a case as serious as that should not have gone unnoticed
23 by you.
24 PS BIRD: I agree, but perhaps may I just explain?
25 MR SHELDON: Certainly.
24
1 PS BIRD: I do not intend at all to take away the lack of
2 the supervision that happened with that case. But
3 I came from the station where I ran a beat crimes group
4 of eight constables, there was a changeover of staff
5 every 12 weeks and the benefit I had there was that
6 number 1, I was the only sergeant; number 2, I had no
7 case load and was expected to have no case load, and
8 number 3, a whole host of peripheral administration
9 tasks which fell as it happened to myself in Haringey
10 were dealt with by administration support systems within
11 the borough Operation Command Unit, and in hindsight now
12 I can see with sergeants going in there to Haringey CPT,
13 taking on as many investigations as the police
14 constables, we were asking ourselves to do an impossible
15 task to supervise at all.
16 MR SHELDON: Yes. Because of course I am not suggesting
17 that it is just you that bears responsibility for that
18 failure and of course if the situation had been as it is
19 now, with reporting sergeants being responsible for the
20 supervision of their officers, this is a criticism that
21 might be directed solely at Sergeant Cooper-Bland, but
22 given the way in which the office worked at the time of
23 you all three relying on each other to attempt to keep
24 an eye on what is going on, if not exclusively then at
25 least partially you bear some responsibility for that
25
1 failure.
2 PS BIRD: I accept that.
3 MR SHELDON: After Victoria's death there was a review
4 carried out almost straightaway by DCI Wheeler to which
5 we have already referred and amongst other things he
6 noticed staff shortages and lack of detectives which you
7 have given helpful evidence about already. Perhaps you
8 had better have a look at his report again and in
9 particular page 23 in volume 44.
10 This is the page upon which he lists his
11 recommendations and recommendation 6:
12 "The staffing levels of CPT at Highgate should be
13 increased by at least one detective or police constable
14 in the first instance in order to help with the
15 increasing workload."
16 Was that enough?
17 PS BIRD: No, clearly not because as I said in my previous
18 evidence they now have three sergeants, eight
19 constables, and five of those constables are detective
20 constables. They have a career Detective Inspector in
21 charge of them.
22 MR SHELDON: Recommendation 5:
23 "Detective Constable Bloor has been selected for the
24 CPT at Highgate and his posting to that unit should be
25 expedited to August.."
26
1 Detective Constable Bloor did show up eventuallydid,
2 did he not?
3 PS BIRD: In May of that year, yes.
4 MR SHELDON: May 2000?
5 PS BIRD: That is correct, by which time they had removed
6 our DI and Sergeant Hodges and myself ran the team.
7 MR SHELDON: Was Detective Constable Blau the one detective
8 or police constable in the first instance who should be
9 drafted in to boost numbers or was he an addition?
10 PS BIRD: I think DC Bloor, I do not know how he became the
11 person to turn up but he was the only detective we had.
12 I am sorry, I have missed the question I am sure.
13 MR SHELDON: Recommendations 5 and 6, an either/or and
14 a both, and did you get DC Bloor plus one or was it just
15 PC Bloor?
16 PS BIRD: No, we just got DC Bloor.
17 MR SHELDON: You make the point in your statement, in
18 paragraph 41 in particular, that the findings of
19 Detective Chief Inspector Wheeler as recorded in this
20 report should not really have been news to him because
21 he was supposed to have been in charge of the team for
22 some substantial period prior to this report; is that
23 right?
24 PS BIRD: Yes.
25 MR SHELDON: How often did you see him before he came in to
27
1 write this report?
2 PS BIRD: At Highgate CPT?
3 MR SHELDON: Yes.
4 PS BIRD: Never.
5 MR SHELDON: Did you ever have the opportunity to put the
6 sort of concerns about training, staffing and resources
7 that we have been discussing to him face to face?
8 PS BIRD: I do recall having the training day which was at
9 risk of turning into a general whingeing day because
10 everybody present was complaining about the lack of
11 staff --
12 MR SHELDON: And he was there?
13 PS BIRD: -- and training. He ran it.
14 MR SHELDON: You recall putting those concerns to him?
15 PS BIRD: If it was not me then it was the general audience.
16 However, there is an acceptance that Mr Wheeler by
17 himself probably could not have done anything about it.
18 MR SHELDON: I see. Were you spoken to by him in the
19 preparation of this report?
20 PS BIRD: Of his report?
21 MR SHELDON: Yes.
22 PS BIRD: He did speak to me, yes.
23 MR SHELDON: Did you feel you had an adequate opportunity to
24 express your views and concerns?
25 PS BIRD: It was a very strange atmosphere in our office
28
1 after the tragic events of February 2000. Mr Wheeler
2 descended upon our office like a ton of bricks. Nobody
3 expected that there should not have been a review but
4 then we had Blue Martin which was an an independent
5 review by Mr Sterry and then we had Mr Wheeler. I think
6 if Mr Wheeler's attitude had been a little less
7 autocratic he would have probably got a lot more out of
8 the staff than he did.
9 MR SHELDON: One might get the impression from reading
10 Mr Wheeler's report that he thought a lot of the
11 problems, particularly regarding resources, were easily
12 solvable. He says for example that he was able to get
13 an Otis machine up and ready for your use within a day
14 and that he was able to make significant improvements to
15 the supervision systems within a day. Do you accept
16 that many of the problems with supervision systems and
17 resources that we have discussed were easily solvable?
18 PS BIRD: If you knew the equation, yes.
19 MR SHELDON: What does that mean?
20 PS BIRD: If you knew the answer, everything is easy. It is
21 having the answers. And I was certainly there without
22 the experience of running a CIPP team model. What can I
23 say? Perhaps if Mr Wheeler or his predecessor had been
24 there prior to me getting there and the systems had been
25 in place we would not be having this conversation now.
29
1 MR SHELDON: Because he indicates in his report that he
2 thought that something of a siege mentality had grown up
3 in Highgate CPT or in your team and that with a bit of
4 creative thought and effort a lot of the difficulties
5 that you were facing could have been dealt with. Do you
6 accept that as an analysis?
7 PS BIRD: No, I do not accept it. I think that all the
8 supervisors there were busy, too busy to give it
9 a second thought, and because that is what we had walked
10 into we stuck with it, rightly or wrongly, and I do not
11 suggest it is right because in hindsight it has shown
12 that a better system is safer.
13 MR SHELDON: Were there substantial improvements quickly
14 implemented in the days and weeks after DCI Wheeler's
15 visit?
16 PS BIRD: With the introduction of the CIPP team, that was
17 the greatest change, the introduction of the CIPP team.
18 MR SHELDON: And what practical effect did that have?
19 PS BIRD: It meant that Sergeant Hodges and I virtually got
20 rid of our caseloads although we took serious
21 investigations on, and it meant that we spent our time
22 looking at our individual officers' caseloads, and if
23 they needed help, if the workload did get too bad for
24 them then we were able to walk away from our desk and
25 assist them and in that way supervise.
30
1 MR SHELDON: Mr Wheeler came back a fortnight after his
2 original report to see how things were going and he
3 makes a further report which is in volume 45 at
4 page 224. Could you have a look at that, please.
5 PS BIRD: Could you give me the reference again?
6 MR SHELDON: Page 224, "Follow-up visit to Haringey CPT on
7 30th March".
8 PS BIRD: I have it.
9 MR SHELDON: Under the heading "Initial Findings," he
10 records the fact that she was somewhat dismayed to find
11 that some of the remedial action he had requested to
12 take place had not been taken. Do you recall
13 specifically areas of DCI Wheeler's recommendations that
14 should have been your responsibility to implement that
15 you chose not to implement?
16 PS BIRD: I do not believe there was anything in that office
17 that Mr Wheeler had asked us to implement that had not
18 been implemented.
19 MR SHELDON: DidI accept that there were reservations about
20 the way in which this process may have been managed by
21 DCI Wheeler, as you have indicated, but in general terms
22 did members of your team take this process seriously?
23 PS BIRD: Yes, they took it very seriously. I mean such was
24 the atmosphere, and these are very serious proceedings,
25 I realise that, but such was the atmosphere in that
31
1 office that you could not walk in there without officers
2 breaking down because of the gravity of what had
3 happened. It was a very serious time and any suggestion
4 really that the officers were not taking this seriously
5 is totally and utterly untrue.
6 MR SHELDON: Did you used to drift in prior to Victoria's
7 death, in and out of work at hours to suit yourself?
8 PS BIRD: No, sir.
9 MR SHELDON: What hours did you keep?
10 PS BIRD: I kept whichever hours was best for the work,
11 getting best value out of my day. I can answer that
12 more succinctly for you if you wish.
13 MR SHELDON: Perhaps I can ask it more helpfully. How often
14 were you there substantially after 8 o'clock in the
15 morning?
16 PS BIRD: Gracious me, probably never.
17 MR SHELDON: How often did you leave substantially before
18 four o'clock in the afternoon?
19 PS BIRD: I worked a variety of shifts. They were always
20 eight hours in my day. Invariably there were more than
21 eight hours, sometimes 10, mostly 10. 12, 16. I worked
22 a variety of shifts and it really all depended, as with
23 every officer, on what you had to do during that day.
24 MR SHELDON: Did you ensure that your constables kept proper
25 hours?
32
1 PS BIRD: Very much so.
2 MR SHELDON: Could you have a look at page 228 in this
3 report:
4 "In conclusion the staff have worked hard to improve
5 their situation," first paragraph.
6 Second paragraph:
7 "The office now needs to be managed by DI Howard and
8 the officers themselves need to realise that they cannot
9 continue to drift in to work at hours to suit
10 themselves."
11 PS BIRD: I have read that.
12 MR SHELDON: What is your reaction to it?
13 PS BIRD: We are police officers. Police officers cannot
14 just work 8 until 4 or 10 until 6. There is a necessity
15 to cover the office and our office was covered from 6 in
16 the morning, sometimes certainly until 6 at night but
17 sometimes through until 8 or 9 o'clock at night because
18 of the workload that we had. It did not happen every
19 day but for most days of the week that was covered for
20 that time and officers would come in, if there was an
21 arrest they would come in at 6 o'clock. If they had
22 a lot of supervision to do then the early hours were the
23 best time to do it because as soon as the social
24 services offices opened, and there was 60 social
25 services child protection workers wanting the services
33
1 of four or five police constables, the phones never
2 stopped ringing.
3 MR SHELDON: So your understanding of the situation is, am
4 I right in summarising in this way, that officers did
5 not come in and out to suit themselves, they came in and
6 out to suit the demands of the investigations on which
7 they were working?
8 PS BIRD: They were there as employees of the Metropolitan
9 Police Service and were duty bound to give it best value
10 and they came in to suit the job, not to suit
11 themselves.
12 MR SHELDON: And that police work, child protection work is
13 not an 8 to 4 job?
14 PS BIRD: Police work is a 24 hour a day job, sir.
15 MR SHELDON: But you are entirely confident, are you
16 officer, that you and the officers for whom you were
17 responsible worked appropriate hours?
18 PS BIRD: I am confident, yes.
19 MR SHELDON: One last point please, and that is this. If
20 I were to suggest to you that were any member of almost
21 any team in the Metropolitan Police sitting where you
22 are now, or indeed a member of any other public service,
23 and they were asked whether they had sufficient
24 resources, sufficient staff, sufficient training to do
25 their job to the best way they would want to, very few
34
1 of them would say "yes"?
2 PS BIRD: That is correct.
3 MR SHELDON: Given that, is it your view that you were
4 particularly badly off in Haringey CPT in those
5 respects?
6 PS BIRD: I believe that -- I think you can work without
7 resources. What you cannot work without is training and
8 when you have a workload you cannot work without staff.
9 So I think we were badly off compared to others.
10 MR SHELDON: Thank you very much.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Sheldon. Mr Gareth Rees please.
12 MR REES: Sergeant Bird I am going to cover a lot of the
13 same areas that you have been asked about today and
14 yesterday. We can dwell on one or two of them if we
15 may. First of all your police record, 22 years when you
16 arrived at Haringey, part of it spent in Hertfordshire
17 and most of it with the Met.
18 PS BIRD: Yes.
19 MR REES: Are you proud of your police record?
20 PS BIRD: I am not conceited but yes I am proud of it.
21 MR REES: And your aim in moving from your previous job with
22 the Met to Haringey was to further your career?
23 PS BIRD: That is correct.
24 MR REES: You know we have heard some evidence about CPT
25 work being regarded as a bit of a backwater.
35
1 PS BIRD: We have heard that, yes.
2 MR REES: Did you regard it that way?
3 PS BIRD: No, I did not, I did not. I feel that CPT work
4 was very, very worthwhile and it was also a chance to
5 meet to enhance whatever detective skills I picked up on
6 the Beat Crimes Unit and the BPU Unit.
7 MR REES: Did you have any idea when you left Brent of the
8 problems which you were going to face?
9 PS BIRD: I did not.
10 MR REES: You, as you were telling us earlier this morning,
11 had left a particular job in uniform where you had
12 involvement with a team of constables dealing with CRIS.
13 PS BIRD: That is correct.
14 MR REES: Was that a successful operation?
15 PS BIRD: It was a successful operation.
16 MR REES: And you went and became involved in very
17 specialist work?
18 PS BIRD: Yes.
19 MR REES: Acting as an untrained detective?
20 PS BIRD: Yes.
21 MR REES: And essentially you were still a uniformed police
22 sergeant?
23 PS BIRD: That is correct.
24 MR REES: Something else it may be helpful for you to
25 recognise, given your evidence, this Inquiry has heard
36
1 very often from people, properly so, about the benefit
2 of hindsight.
3 PS BIRD: Yes.
4 MR REES: You also, would you agree, had the benefit not
5 only of the hindsight but now having two years
6 experience of child protection work?
7 PS BIRD: Yes.
8 MR REES: And just confirm for us, please, after you left
9 Haringey you told us, but did not specify, the work that
10 you are doing with child protection now.
11 PS BIRD: I work as a child abuse prevention coordinator
12 which is crime prevention for children.
13 MR REES: So hindsight of course, and very much so, two
14 years' experience of -- two and a half years really of
15 child protection work.
16 PS BIRD: Yes.
17 MR REES: A small matter of fact, when one assesses what the
18 appropriate experience of the people at Haringey was, in
19 fact Detective Inspector Howard, although called that,
20 was not a trained detective, was he?
21 PS BIRD: No, he was not.
22 MR REES: By July, obviously a very important time in this
23 Inquiry, you had been doing your best, do you agree with
24 this expression, to catch up in child protection work?
25 PS BIRD: It was a very steep learning curve, yes.
37
1 MR REES: Finding your feet?
2 PS BIRD: Trying to.
3 MR REES: It would be unfair, I presume you will agree with
4 this, that you were not idle?
5 PS BIRD: I certainly was not idle.
6 MR REES: And your training was limited to a course on
7 working together, about which we all know.
8 PS BIRD: I had the Working Together course, yes.
9 MR REES: How long do you think -- and it may be you will
10 defer to other people's opinion on this, if you want
11 to -- how long do you think with that very limited
12 training it would take somebody working on the ground to
13 become a competent Child Protection Team sergeant?
14 PS BIRD: I do not know. In life you never stop learning
15 but there certainly was a review, an inspection done in
16 1998 where it was indicated that it would take 18 months
17 for an officer to get up to speed and be fully
18 conversant with child protection matters. It said
19 nothing about detective matters, it said child
20 protection matters.
21 MR REES: You have now been involved for two and a half
22 years, do you agree with the 18 month assessment?
23 PS BIRD: I think that is conservative. I am certainly
24 still learning.
25 MR REES: We all saw Constable Jones yesterday. When you
38
1 were there in July 1999 did you assess her, with your
2 limited ability to do so, but did you assess her in
3 Child Protection Team work as a good officer?
4 PS BIRD: I was introduced to Karen as the most experienced
5 officer in that office and that is how I treated her,
6 that is how I dealt with it.
7 MR REES: You of course would have known that apart from her
8 eight month break on maternity she had about three
9 years' experience.
10 PS BIRD: I did, yes.
11 MR REES: And this may be worthy of repetition, although you
12 were very clear about it earlier today, the fatal
13 combination that caused your supervision in July to be
14 lacking was your lack of CPT experience, yes?
15 PS BIRD: Yes.
16 MR REES: As well as, and you perhaps place more emphasis on
17 this, the poor system that was in place?
18 PS BIRD: Well, we really did not have a system.
19 MR REES: And so when you went to the meetings in October
20 and December, where you had an opportunity to represent
21 Haringey at OCU about IT and other matters, staffing,
22 and you did not speak up, what did you think would be
23 the effect if you had said something forcefully or
24 otherwise?
25 PS BIRD: I cannot say now. However, I had the knowledge at
39
1 the time that the North West OCU had horrendous demands
2 upon its limited resources, with the number of murders
3 that were going on at the time, and I knew that
4 resources had been stripped from the boroughs as well as
5 other offices to supply the teams for the murder teams.
6 It may be that I thought it was not worth saying
7 anything. However, I still believe I missed an
8 opportunity.
9 MR REES: But if you had said something would you have
10 expected something to have been done?
11 PS BIRD: I might have expected something to be done. I do
12 not believe anything could have been done.
13 MR REES: In October that first meeting you went to
14 in October was the first meeting you had attended?
15 PS BIRD: Yes, it was.
16 MR REES: You were a new boy?
17 PS BIRD: Yes I was.
18 MR REES: You were replacing, as happened occasionally, as
19 a sergeant you were replacing an inspector?
20 PS BIRD: That is right.
21 MR REES: Who by and large went?
22 PS BIRD: Yes, he did.
23 MR REES: So need for replacement again arose in December
24 which was your next visit?
25 PS BIRD: Yes.
40
1 MR REES: So there were more senior officers, more
2 experienced officers who attended those meetings
3 regularly. You were new.
4 PS BIRD: Yes.
5 MR REES: Of course, also by October about seven months
6 experience, still learning, you had become the senior
7 sergeant at Haringey?
8 PS BIRD: Yes, I had.
9 MR REES: Because Mr Cooper-Bland, although he had not left,
10 he was to leave in early November, it was well known
11 that he was leaving and Sergeant Hodges had arrived as
12 his replacement.
13 PS BIRD: Yes.
14 MR REES: We will hear from him but you I am sure can assist
15 to put it in context through your evidence.
16 Sergeant Hodges came with even less experience, less
17 appropriate experience than you had?
18 PS BIRD: Yes.
19 MR REES: So all of a sudden you are in charge of the
20 sergeants?
21 PS BIRD: Yes, I suppose that is the case or was the case.
22 MR REES: Can we have a look please at Mr Sterry's report in
23 volume 3, first of all page 36. Do you have it there
24 still?
25 PS BIRD: I have it.
41
1 MR REES: This is just to confirm matters you have already
2 helped us with. Page 36. There is a list of the
3 officers' names and then there is a paragraph below it,
4 last sentence. In particular this is the paragraph
5 which gives us the information about the experience of
6 those working career detectives, 60 years experience
7 from Westminster. Last but one sentence:
8 "It quickly became apparent that this" -- pausing,
9 the detective experience -- "this was a luxury missing
10 from the Haringey Child Protection Team. This lack of
11 expertise forms a common theme throughout the review."
12 Perfectly fair?
13 PS BIRD: It was very fair.
14 MR REES: If one goes now to page 39, that third paragraph
15 which you were asked to look at before:
16 "Put very bluntly, all three sergeants gave no
17 active supervision to the investigating officer,
18 probably because they did not have the skills or
19 training necessary to undertake this operation."
20 Perfectly fair?
21 PS BIRD: Yes.
22 MR REES: The Sterry report of course was a necessary
23 investigation into what had happened and I think you
24 accept in general terms the conclusions drawn.
25 PS BIRD: I think I have to, yes.
42
1 MR REES: You have a slightly different view as regards
2 Mr Wheeler?
3 PS BIRD: Yes.
4 MR REES: As far as both reports are concerned is it right
5 that until this Inquiry began to gather information and
6 serve it on you as an interested party, you had not seen
7 those reports?
8 PS BIRD: No, I had not.
9 MR REES: You had some knowledge that they existed of
10 course?
11 PS BIRD: That is right.
12 MR REES: I am going to ask you to put in context in
13 relation to Mr Wheeler's report other documents that you
14 would have seen as they were created. Can I begin with
15 some documents which have been recently provided. Sir,
16 forgive me one moment. A bundle produced earlier this
17 week, 45A, 150.801.
18 Sir, this is a letter, one of a number of documents
19 which have been provided to the Inquiry by us which tell
20 a little bit more of the story relating to Mr Wheeler's
21 report.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: I am grateful to you Mr Rees, thank you.
23 MR REES: Do you have that?
24 PS BIRD: Yes.
25 MR REES: It is a letter dated 8th March so the same date as
43
1 the report. It is to all the Highgate staff and it is
2 signed by Mr Wheeler on the next page.
3 PS BIRD: Yes.
4 MR REES: Do you remember seeing this letter?
5 PS BIRD: Yes, it was sent to all of us.
6 MR REES: And at the bottom of the page he highlights
7 various points, in particular number 6, "need for new
8 systems of supervision." That was no surprise to you
9 because you had been discussing that in the days before
10 the report and this letter were prepared.
11 PS BIRD: That is correct.
12 MR REES: Over the page, last paragraph:
13 "I can see that this is a hard-working CPT office
14 and the team is one that I would have been pleased to
15 lead. Thank you for your hard work over the last few
16 days and your willingness to put things right."
17 PS BIRD: Yes.
18 MR REES: It was support?
19 PS BIRD: I certainly felt so at the time, yes.
20 MR REES: I think we all probably understand why you put it
21 that way. Why are you surprised now?
22 PS BIRD: Because in one hand you seem to be handed a gift
23 and in the next hand there would be a scathing report on
24 your idleness, unprofessionalism, et cetera et cetera.
25 MR REES: Volume 45/224, different bundle. While you are
44
1 being handed it, this is the follow-up visit
2 on March 30th, you have looked at it this morning. This
3 is a document you did not see.
4 PS BIRD: I did not see this document until recently.
5 MR REES: It is important in two regards. On the first
6 page, "Initial Findings", there is criticism of things
7 not having been done. PS Fox under "Initial Findings"
8 second paragraph, he is not part of Haringey, is he?
9 PS BIRD: No, he is not.
10 MR REES: He is somebody who failed, who should have come to
11 Haringey to do something and Mr Wheeler is criticising
12 him.
13 PS BIRD: Sergeant Fox was the training sergeant at
14 Becke House
15 MR REES: PC Palmer in the next paragraph dealing with the
16 Otis machine, again he is not Highgate, is he?
17 PS BIRD: No, he is the IT constable at Becke House.
18 MR REES: Then there is a reference to DI Howard but
19 certainly when there is Mr Wheeler talking about his
20 dismay at the lack of remedial action, failures really,
21 he is certainly not talking about you or any other
22 sergeant.
23 PS BIRD: I would have been surprised if he had been.
24 MR REES: Turning on, please, office management. This is an
25 issue. Again you have helped, please help a little
45
1 further. Mr Wheeler had had control of the CPT at
2 Camden, is that right?
3 PS BIRD: Yes.
4 MR REES: And he was rigid in his view that the system he
5 had put in place at Camden was right?
6 PS BIRD: Yes.
7 MR REES: Please tell us if I am overdoing it. He was
8 dogmatic in that view?
9 PS BIRD: I think my word was autocratic, but yes, he was
10 dogmatic in the view that the systems in Camden were the
11 best.
12 MR REES: There was no budging him?
13 PS BIRD: I did not try but there probably would not have
14 been, no.
15 MR REES: Let us move on and then come back to this
16 document. During 2000, the spring of 2000 the Camden
17 regime was implemented in Haringey.
18 PS BIRD: That is right, yes.
19 MR REES: Mr Wheeler I think moved on.
20 PS BIRD: Yes, he had been promoted in January 1999, just
21 before I got to the OCU.
22 MR REES: He moved on?
23 PS BIRD: Yes.
24 MR REES: Did the system implemented, the Camden system
25 implemented in Haringey remain in place?
46
1 PS BIRD: More or less, yes. When the new Detective
2 Inspector came along various things were changed but
3 more or less it stayed in place.
4 MR REES: What about the flexibility of time?
5 PS BIRD: It just remained the same because it was
6 necessary. It was best value.
7 MR REES: Mr Wheeler was determined that the hours 8 until 4
8 should be worked?
9 PS BIRD: 8 to 4 and 10 to 6 for the on-call officer, yes.
10 MR REES: He could not see the argument for working outside
11 those hours.
12 PS BIRD: I do not recall trying to argue with him but no,
13 he could not. We did -- we did put the point to him
14 that if an officer has a case conference to go to,
15 especially at the North Tottenham site which was
16 a horrendous journey, if it was a 9.30 conference there
17 was little point in them coming to the office at
18 8 o'clock because it would probably take them an hour to
19 get there anyway, so to go directly there and then work
20 through to 5 or 5.30 in the afternoon seemed to me to be
21 the way to get the best value out of our officers.
22 MR REES: If one moves to page 228, and his views of the
23 words "cannot continue to drift into work at hours to
24 suit themselves", you have already commented on that.
25 PS BIRD: It just simply was not true. They were not doing
47
1 it in the first place so to continue to do so was wrong.
2 MR REES: You can see I assume that that might be taken on
3 a reading to mean idleness, laziness.
4 PS BIRD: I am sure that was at the top of Mr Wheeler's mind
5 in a lot of what he wrote.
6 MR REES: Of course I must ask you this because you are
7 aware of it and you may want to comment. These sorts of
8 comments, impossible to try and differentiate, being
9 lifted from reports and documents being prepared by
10 Mr Wheeler to assist the Inquiry when the matter was
11 opened, caused the stinging criticism that there was
12 something rotten in the state of Haringey CPT. What is
13 your reaction to that?
14 PS BIRD: I have to disagree because there was nothing
15 rotten in the state of Haringey CPT. In effect there
16 was probably not a lot different in Haringey CPT to many
17 other CPT's in London then and possibly now.
18 MR REES: Do you have volume 45A there? Volume 45A,
19 page 803. This is Mr Wheeler saying goodbye. Do you
20 have that? Again it is a letter to all of you. You
21 have not seen the report, you have not seen
22 the March 30th memo. Last two paragraphs:
23 "It has been difficult for us ... thank you for the
24 good grace ... I have had to implement changes ... and
25 for your support ... getting the job done properly.
48
1 I have said before this is a very pleasant team to work
2 with and I am a little bit sorry that Highgate does not
3 now fall under my remit. I will no doubt see you all at
4 CPT events in the future. Keep up the good work that
5 you are doing and please know that if I can help any of
6 you in the future in any way you will only have to ask
7 me."
8 Yes?
9 PS BIRD: Yes.
10 MR REES: Then there is a letter two pages on at page 805,
11 dated 7th November, again from Mr Wheeler, addressed to
12 Sergeant Hodges. Was a similar letter in identical form
13 sent to you?
14 PS BIRD: I have a copy of it, yes.
15 MR REES: "I am writing to thank you for helping in
16 reorganising systems and setting up new procedures in
17 the Haringey office. As you know things were very
18 difficult in the office after the Kovao case earlier
19 this year. Improvements needed to be made on procedures
20 and together I think we did that together. I was very
21 his pleased with the way you and Sergeant Bird were
22 willing to listen to new ideas and take on extra work.
23 I know that both you and DS Bird took work home to
24 complete in your own time. The induction brochure you
25 completed was a first class document and I hope we can
49
1 bring that in across CPT's in the future.
2 "Thank you once again for your hard work at what was
3 a difficult time for the office. It was also somewhat
4 difficult for me and I thank you for your help. I will
5 ensure that this letter is placed on your personal
6 file."
7 That means that it is placed on your record with the
8 Metropolitan Police.
9 PS BIRD: Yes.
10 MR REES: A form of ongoing reference.
11 PS BIRD: Yes.
12 MR REES: So it is against that background that you were
13 surprised to see the content of the reports that were
14 produced to this Inquiry?
15 PS BIRD: I never thought that we were not working hard.
16 I sometimes thought we could not work harder but I never
17 thought that we were not working hard.
18 MR REES: Thank you very much.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Rees. I am grateful to you.
20 Sergeant Bird, I am very grateful for the frank and
21 clear way in which you have given your evidence to the
22 Inquiry. I just have a few questions to ask you by way
23 of clarification. First of all, whilst Victoria was
24 alive and you were in post in Haringey who did you think
25 was representing the police on the Haringey ACPC?
50
1 PS BIRD: Detective Inspector Howard, sir.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: That was fully understood, was it?
3 PS BIRD: That was certainly my understanding. Yes,
4 I believe it was fully understood, yes.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Who in Haringey Social Services did you find
6 yourself relating to? I mean, did you have a contact
7 there or did you relate to whoever you needed to relate
8 to?
9 PS BIRD: We had contact a lot with the sergeants and myself
10 with the child protection advisers, Petra Kitchman, Dawn
11 Cardiss and Karen Cooper.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. You said at the beginning of your
13 evidence or it emerged that you had not been trained as
14 a detective but that you were given the title of
15 Detective.
16 PS BIRD: Yes.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: That applied to all of the officers in the
18 CPT?
19 PS BIRD: There is always a -- there always appears to have
20 been an image problem, only for the reasons of those
21 people that do not come and look at exactly what the
22 work involves with child protection teams, and I believe
23 that when the new operational command unit SO5 was
24 created in July 2001 -- I have lost track of time.
25 Anyway, when that was created a decision was made to
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