The paperwork piles up for PIRC

The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner is currently working on 31 live investigations into alleged police blunders.

At the start of the year there was fresh woe for former Police Scotland Chief Constable Philip Gormley, when the PIRC launched a fifth investigation into allegations against him of gross misconduct.

And in November the force was rapped after dismissing a 999 call from St Andrews woman Elizabeth Bowe, 50. The PIRC concluded that had officers been deployed it may have prevented her from being murdered that same night by her brother Charles Gordon.

Police Scotland was also criticised by the PIRC after the body of David Penman, 46, was discovered in a van parked in a layby near Dunipace on December 15 2016, two days after the force was first alerted to the abandoned vehicle.

And the high profile investigation into the deaths of John Yuill, 28, and Lamara Bell, 25, following a car accident on the M9 is continuing.

A telephone call made to Police Scotland on July 5 2015, which reported a car off the road, was not followed up.

Lamara, who lay seriously injured beside the body of her boyfriend for three days, later died in hospital.

Picture: PA. Collette Bell listens as solicitor Aamer Anwar outlines the case at yesterday’s press conference in Glasgow.