Gangster in bungled murder probe wins slice of £200k payout while he’s in jail for killing someone else
A POLICE force has paid out £200,000 in damages to two men – including a convicted murderer – over its botched investigation into a gangland killing.
The force has been made to hand over the cash to Levi Walker and Antonio Christie, both 36, who were in a gang of five men convicted of the ‘execution’ of footballer-turned-drug dealer Kevin Nunes in 2002.
They were handed life sentences in 2008 but had their convictions quashed in 2012 after serious concerns emerged about the handling of the case.
Officers had been out drinking with the prosecution’s star witness, covered up crimes he committed, sent him and his family on a taxpayerfunded holiday to South Africa and abused overtime to boost their pay, it was claimed.
One of the witness’s handlers was even having an ‘ intimate affair’ with the female officer in charge of overseeing evidence.
Christie and Walker launched legal action against the Staffordshire force and one of the men has now received £150,000 while the other was paid £50,000 following an out of court settlement. Walker
is in jail, serving a 30-year prison sentence for the separate murder of Narel Sharpe in 2004. Trooper Sharpe, 20, who had served in Kosovo and Iraq, was shot just hours after arriving back in the UK on leave when he fought back as Walker tried to steal his gold chain. South Staffordshire MP Gavin Williamson said: ‘The public will be appalled that their money has ended up in the hands of a murderer because of the disgraceful way this case was handled.’ Fourteen officers, including three nowretired chief constables, were investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
But none has ever been held to account over the botched investigation. Most retired before disciplinary action could take place while a single junior detective received ‘management advice’.
Nunes, 20, had been on the books of Tottenham Hotspur but he was also involved in selling drugs. He was killed as part of a cocaine turf war in Pattingham, Staffordshire.
One of the main prosecution witnesses was Simeon Taylor, who claimed to be a close associate of the killers. He told how he had driven Nunes and two of the alleged murderers to the site of the execution, and witnessed the attacks.
He was taken into a witness protection programme after agreeing to give evidence and guarded by the Staffordshire’s sensitive policing unit (SPU) until the trial. But one of the handlers had an affair with a fellow officer who was in charge of logging evidence in the case at the witness’s safe house – all in the build-up to the trial.
Det Insp Joe Anderson, in an official complaint to the Staffordshire Professional Standards Department, said he had found evidence of ‘corruption, dishonesty and falsification’ by SPU officers on the case.
The IPCC investigation was led by and experienced detective and Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon. It recommended senior officers face action on alleged grounds of gross misconduct but no action was ever taken and the report has not been published two years on.
A Staffordshire Police spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that Staffordshire Police received two claims following the acquittal of five men in the Kevin Nunes murder investigation. Following consultation with our lawyers and insurers, payments of £50,000 and £150,000 were agreed.’
When he quashed the men’s convictions, Lord Justice Hooper said concerns about the sensitive policing unit undermined the case against the defendants and should have been disclosed.