Murdered teenager fined for ‘wasting police time’
SHANA Grice was 19 when she was murdered by former boyfriend Michael Lane.
The case sent shockwaves through the legal system when it emerged the terrified teenager had repeatedly complained to police that he was stalking her.
She reported Lane five times in the six months before she was killed at home in Brighton, East Sussex, in August 2016.
But she was fined for wasting police time instead of being taken seriously.
It also later emerged Lane stalked and harassed 12 other women before murdering Shana. Then 27, he slit the teenager’s throat before trying to set fire to her body.
Lane was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years after being found guilty of her murder at Lewes Crown Court in March 2017.
The sentencing judge said officers had “stereotyped” Shana and failed to take her seriously. But just two of 14 officers and staff investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) were made the subject of publicly held disciplinary proceedings.
Both left Sussex Police before the hearings took place. One was found to have committed gross misconduct and a less serious misconduct charge was found against Trevor Godfrey in July 2019. He was told he would have been sacked had he not already retired. Shana’s parents Sharon and Richard described the hearing as “a sham” that allowed a “wholesale character assassination” of their daughter.
Investigators say Godfrey remained unrepentant. In a Sky documentary being screened on Sunday, IOPC operations manager Tom Milsom said: “His attitude was one of ‘absolutely not, I got it right, she lied to me’.”