Top cop is still facing inquiry after retiring

A TOP police officer who is facing a criminal investigation over evidence he gave to a public inquiry into a fatal shooting of an unarmed robbery suspect has retired, it has emerged.

Former Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood has taken advantage of new rules introduced last year which ended the requirement for accused officers to remain in post while they are under investigation.

This week colleagues of the £117,000-a-year officer were informed he had resigned after serving 30 years in the police.

Despite his exit, he remains the subject of a criminal investigation and has been served with a ‘gross misconduct’ notice.

Mr Heywood authorised an armed swoop which ended in fatherof-two Anthony Grainger, 36, being shot dead by a police marksman in a car park in Culcheth, Cheshire on March 3, 2012. Mr Grainger, originally from Salford but living in Bolton, was shot dead by a single bullet fired from powerful Heckler Koch sub-machine gun by a Greater Manchester Police firearms officer through the windscreen of a stolen Audi.

He and two others were in the car outside a supermarket and police thought they were about to commit an armed robbery although no guns were found in the swoop.

A public inquiry last year heard mistakes were made by GMP, some of them serious. The force is braced for severe criticism about the way it handled the operation and its aftermath, particularly how armed police could be given inaccurate intelligence overstating their targets’ potential for armed violence, when inquiry chairman Judge Teague QC publishes his findings.

During the inquiry Mr Heywood was forced to apologise for what he admitted was ‘poor evidence.’ He kept a log of the mission but admitted going back into it after the mission ended in tragedy in order to add extra detail. He admitted intelligence reports which featured in his handwritten account could not have been known on the dates given. However he denied ‘inventing’ the entry and insisted he had received intelligence a suspected robbery gang could be armed and dangerous.

He told the inquiry chairman at the time he still felt it ‘appropriate’ to sanction the strike, adding: “I apologise unreservedly, sir, if I have given the impression of being unhelpful or, even worse, misleading. I have got an unblemished 28-year police career, sir, and I would never knowingly mislead a court of inquiry.”

The inquiry had previously heard the police marksmen involved in the operation were given flawed intelligence on one of their targets, Mr Grainger.

A spokeswoman for GMP confirmed Mr Heywood had retired. He will keep a substantial pension, it’s understood, unless convicted of a serious criminal offence.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct has referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service.