£25m probe into how police failed THREE murdered girls
POLICE in Cleveland have launched a £25 million, six-year investigation that is expected to uncover ‘substantial’ levels of child sexual exploitation and ‘ previously unrecorded sexual crimes’ – as well as a possible triple killer.
An official report obtained by The Mail on Sunday says the inquiry will look for ‘potential misconduct’ among detectives who carried out ‘inadequate’ investigations into the disappearance and murders of three young women, aged 17 to 21, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
More than 80 police staff and officers are being drafted in to work on Operation Pandect after the scandalhit Cleveland force ‘ failed’ to get justice for the victims’ families over the past two decades.
Last night, Detective Superintendent Michael Hunt, from Cleveland Police’s Historical Investigation Unit, said: ‘We repeat our pledge to all the families involved that we recognise the unimaginable torture they have endured and we would state again our absolute determination to leave no stone unturned to discover what happened to these three young women – and to seek justice for them.’
Cleveland became notorious in the l ate 1980s when social workers removed 121 children from their families after local doctors used a controversial technique to claim they had been molested. Almost all of them were later returned to their innocent parents.
But now it appears that a genuine sex abuse scandal took place in the region a decade later – and that this time the authorities failed to act. The first girl to vanish was Donna Keogh, a popular 17-year-old who dreamed of joining the Royal Navy. She went missing after a house party in Middlesbrough in April 1998 and is assumed dead, although her body has never been found. Her parents were given hope earlier this year when, as part of the re-launched investigation, an excavation of former allotments found a fragment of human jawbone. However, tests revealed it dated back to medieval times.
Despite the setback, her parents, Brian and Shirley Hopwood, remain confident that the truth will emerge. ‘All we have ever wanted – and still want – is justice, truth and closure,’ Mr Hopwood said.
The second victim is Vicky Glass, a 21-year-old who disappeared from Middlesbrough in October 2000 and whose body was found in a stream in North Yorkshire three weeks later. She worked as a prostitute to feed a heroin habit. Two men were questioned over her death, but neither was charged. In May 2002, Rachel Wilson, 19, another sex worker and drug addict, went missing from Middlesbrough. Her skeleton was found in a ditch on farmland ten years later.
Takeaway boss Anthony Rushanopsky, who is currently serving 16 years for attacks on three women, was questioned over her death, but not charged. A local suspect arrested four years ago remains on police bail.
The new investigation follows a number of independent reviews and pressure from the grieving families.
Last year, Barry Coppinger, the local Police and Crime Commissioner, successfully sought £3.7 million from the Home Office for the first year of Operation Pandect. The previously unpublished report on the funding application by HM Inspectorate of Policing reveals the true scale of the inquiry and previous police blunders.
‘It is generally accepted that initial investigations were inadequate and this has been compounded by a failure to complete recommendations arising from independent reviews,’ it states.
The document also says that Mike Veale, Cleveland’s new Chief Constable, is ‘well aware of the potential cumulative effect of these risks’ and that ‘the public would expect any potential misconduct by officers in failing to respond to previous reports of abuse, or any allegations that police officers have committed criminal offences, be dealt with properly’.
‘We recognise the torture families have endured’