EX-TOP COP WON’T FACE GUN-DEATH INQUIRY CHARGE
RETIRED ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE IN CLEAR OVER EVIDENCE HE GAVE
A FORMER top GMP police officer will not face criminal charges over the evidence he gave at a public inquiry into the death of an unarmed robbery suspect.
The police watchdog began investigating Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood last year in relation to the fatal shooting of Anthony Granger in 2012.
The father-of-two, originally from Salford, died after being hit by a single bullet fired by a GMP marksman through the windscreen of a stolen Audi.
Mr Heywood authorised the operation which led to the swoop in a car park in Culcheth, Cheshire, as police believed Mr Grainger and two others were poised to commit an armed robbery.
No guns were found. Mr Heywood was allowed to retire from his £117,000-a-year job last month, taking advantage of new rules which ended the requirement for officers to stay in post while under investigation. The Independent Office for Police Conduct looked into the evidence Mr Heywood gave at a public inquiry.
During the hearing, 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 operation ended in tragedy to add extra detail. He admitted intelligence reports which featured in his handwritten account could not have been known on the dates given. But he denied ‘inventing’ the entry and insisted he had received intelligence about an armed gang.
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 heard that the police marksmen involved in the operation were given flawed intelligence on Mr Grainger.
The IOPC handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service in May this year, saying their investigators had decided Mr Heywood may have committed a criminal offence. However, the IOPC confirmed he will not be charged.
It said: “The threshold for an IOPC referral is much lower than the threshold applied by the CPS when they consider whether to charge someone with a criminal offence.”
The IOPC also found that Mr Heywood has a case to answer for gross misconduct. GMP agreed with this but a date for a misconduct hearing has not yet been set.