GET A GRIP!
Furious backlash over SNP’s handling of bullying probe into Police Scotland chief after wife’s extraordinary intervention
NICOLA Sturgeon was last night urged to ‘get a grip’ on the deepening scandal over Scotland’s bullying row police chief.
The SNP faced a ferocious political attack after Phil Gormley’s wife Claire, a retired senior police officer, lashed out at Justice Secretary Michael Matheson and two force watchdogs.
Tory peer Lord Forsyth said Mr Matheson had acted in a ‘wholly unconstitutional’ way by blocking Mr Gormley’s return to work.
The former Scottish Secretary said: ‘It’s the First Minister who should be thinking about the nature of the administration that she is running – she should get a grip on this. Mr Matheson has dropped the ball.’
He also condemned the secrecy surrounding the row, including a lack of minutes for key meetings, and vowed to question the UK Government in the Lords about potential breaches of civil service procedures.
He said: ‘Even Stalin kept minutes. I wouldn’t say this is a witch hunt against Mr Gormley – because they tended to happen much more rapidly than this.’
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon cannot hide any longer – there are legitimate and growing questions surrounding the SNP’s entire handling of this fiasco.’
It also emerged that investigators
are now ‘working to facilitate the necessary interviews’ with the Chief Constable.
Yesterday the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) said it had launched a fourth investigation against Mr Gormley following a complaint about his behaviour from Police Scotland’s IT chief Martin Leven.
The PIRC is already investigating three ‘gross misconduct’ bullying allegations involving the chief, while another two complaints about alleged bullying by Mr Gormley have been sent to the Scottish Police Authority (SPA).
Last night Miss Davidson said: ‘Seven months after the first allegation against her husband, Mrs Gormley says the Chief Constable has not yet been interviewed by the body conducting the investigation. She also claims that oth ‘The
‘Matter of public ridicule’
ers in the force have not yet come forward to provide any evidence to the authorities.
‘If this is all true, we have to ask what is going on? Why has Scotland’s police force been left without its chief for months and months, without basic inquiries having been made?’
Mrs Gormley, herself a former senior police officer, spoke out in defence of her husband, who is currently on special leave.
In yesterday’s Mail, she said she was an ‘experienced investigator’ who had conducted a number of probes ‘including inquiries into allegations of bullying against senior officers’.
In such cases, she said she had ‘searched for the truth’, but added: ‘I have seen little evidence of this concerning my husband, who has still not been interviewed.’
Mr Gormley, who denies the allegations against him, was placed on special leave in September.
Lord Forsyth told the Mail that Mr Matheson ‘had explaining to do as to how we got into this mess’, because his handling of the affair was a ‘farce’ which had turned policing in Scotland into a ‘matter of public ridicule’. He said: idea that ministers should instruct an independent police authority what to do is wholly unconstitutional.’
He said the lack of minutes meant freedom of information requests could be rejected on the grounds that no records existed. Lord Forsyth is to ask the UK Government in the Lords ‘if they are satisfied with the procedures being followed by civil servants in Scotland for maintaining records of meetings with ministers which may be subject to freedom of information requests’.
He condemned the delay in interviewing the chief as ‘just extraordinary’, adding that completing the probes should have been a higher priority.
Lord Forsyth said police complaints procedures also had to be reviewed, because he claimed investigations were being launched without proper assessments of the ‘veracity’ of allegations, and without speaking to the subject of the complaints.
Scottish Labour justice spokesman Daniel Johnson also branded the situation a ‘farce’.
The row over minutes began when it emerged no record was kept of Mr Matheson’s meeting with then SPA chairman, Andrew Flanagan, when the Justice Secretary intervened to stop the chief’s return. Minutes were not kept for another meeting between Mr Gormley and Mr Matheson’s top civil servant, Paul Johnston.
A PIRC spokesman said it ‘continues to carry out thorough and independent investigations into the various allegations about the Chief Constable and recognises their significance’.
He added: ‘In each case, the PIRC has progressed these inquiries timeously and is conscious of the needs of both the complainers and the Chief Constable, all of whom seek a speedy outcome.’
SPA chairman Professor Susan Deacon said: ‘The conduct issues relating to the Chief Constable remain live and ongoing, and it remains inappropriate for SPA to offer public comment.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘There is a process in place which provides for independent investigation of such matters and it would be inappropriate to comment further.’
David Morgan, Mr Gormley’s lawyer, said: ‘The decision by the PIRC reported publicly today compounds the actions of the SPA by launching another investigation into a false and historic allegation against our client.’
IN the Commons and as Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Forsyth was the scourge of woollyminded political opponents.
As Baron Forsyth of Drumlean in the Lords, Sir Michael now has the SNP’s inept handling of the ongoing Police Scotland shambles in his sights.
The force’s Chief Constable has spent months on special leave while claims of bullying against him are probed.
The Justice Secretary, Michael Matheson, stands accused of sidelining the Scottish Police Authority, supposedly the public’s watchdog, with an improper intervention that kept Phil Gormley from returning to his post.
Wherever you look in this case, there is chaos.
Chief Constable Gormley has yet to be spoken to – seven months on – as the probe into the claims against him proceeds at glacial pace.
He denies any wrongdoing and it is right that a thorough investigation is mounted. But even allowing for limited resources at the office of the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, must it be so desperately slow?
And what of Mr Matheson, who claims he had no choice but to intervene to rescind the Scottish Police Authority decision to clear the way for Mr Gormley to return to work? He says the watchdog body had not followed proper procedure but his own actions were far from punctilious.
His meeting with the former head of the SPA was, incredibly, not minuted. As Sir Michael points out, even despotic Josef Stalin minuted his meetings.
The public are entitled to ask if Mr Matheson has seized sole control of the police by issuing edicts to the watchdog SPA as part of what the Tories call ‘the SNP’s secret Scotland.’
They must also consider the allegation that the probe into Mr Gormley has descended into a fishing expedition.
And how shameful that a peer will have to raise the issue in the Lords in a bid to jolt a response from a complacent First Minister more concerned with sparing her party’s blushes than with halting the erosion of public faith in Police Scotland.