Police kept foetus for three years without telling mum
POLICE seized an aborted foetus and kept it in a freezer for three years without the mother’s knowledge.
GMP detectives who suspected a teenage girl was the victim of sexual grooming in Rochdale seized the foetus from a clinic in the hope of obtaining DNA to identify the father.
The revelation is one of a series made by a retired senior policeman Pete Jackson, 54, whose whistleblowing sparked a major police watchdog investigation.
The foetus is said to have been destroyed without ceremony at the same time as body parts of 12 victims of killer GP Harold Shipman in February 2011. The mother was only informed afterwards.
Mr Jackson told our sister paper the M.E.N.: “Morally and ethically this is completely wrong. I seriously question claims from senior officers that they’d agonised over decisions to destroy human body parts in this manner.”
A GMP spokesman confirmed the incident but insisted officers had correctly applied rules on the destruction of body parts as they applied at the time. They later informed the mother about what had happened.
Mr Jackson, a former detective superintendant who retired in February after 31 years in the police, has now spoken of his dismay following a three-year probe into his allegations about the retention of body parts by GMP and another alleged failure to protect a youngster.
Mr Jackson told the police watchdog of his concerns that the force kept and then secretly destroyed body parts of Shipman’s victims without telling the families - a story exclusively revealed by the M.E.N. in 2013.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) examined this claim as well as an allegation that police conducting a surveillance operation on a suspected paedophile allowed a boy of 13 to walk into his clutches without intervening.
The youngster is said to have spent nearly two hours inside. The operation was ultimately scrapped with no-one being charged. Former chief constable Sir Peter Fahy and former Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney were among a number of officers placed under criminal investigation as the IPCC investigated complaints about both matters but found no evidence of serious wrongdoing.
On the foetus case, GMP has maintained its officers abided by the rules that applied to the disposal of human tissue at the time. The IPCC has not published its findings into either case or any other strand of its investigation into the claims.
However, they confirm that they have not found any evidence of gross misconduct or criminal behaviour.
Mr Jackson, the former head of GMP’s Major Incident Team, said: “I believe GMP needs to be held to account. As a whistleblower, I have repeatedly said my only friend was the truth. However, as I progressed I realised I had a second friend which is public interest.”
Mr Jackson said he had made a number of complaints about other issues to the watchdog but was disappointed that they referred back to the force.
He continued: “I’m amazed many of my disclosures were simply handed back to GMP to investigate themselves. It is the same officers behind all these cases and in my view this is a culture within GMP that needs to be exposed.”
Deputy Chief Constable Ian Pilling stressed the case had been ‘independently investigated by the IPCC.’
He added: “It is our understanding that these inquiries have concluded. The IPCC has not published its findings, however, GMP has fully complied with the recommendations made by the IPCC as a result of their investigations and three officers have been required to attend misconduct meetings. There were findings of no misconduct in relation to two of these officers. The whistleblower’s other meeting has not yet taken place.”
A spokesman for the IPCC said: “The IPCC has completed its investigations and shared our findings and recommendations with the force. We understand that the force is in the process of concluding its own proceedings relating to our investigations. Once those proceedings are concluded we will consider publishing our findings.”