A burning issue: MSPs to launch investigation into cover-up claims at Scotland’s FBI
Holryood politicians are to investigate a cover-up scandal at a defunct crime-fighting agency once known as Scotland’s FBI.
MSPs have promised to scrutinise a Metropolitan Police review which found that Police Scotland may have covered up a cover-up after piles of confidential files were incinerated in the car park of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA).
Officers at the SCDEA were ordered to buy a garden incinerator and petrol to destroy paperwork after the unit managing Scotland’s undercover operations was exposed as a chaotic and potentially criminal shambles in 2011.
After we revealed the incineration of sensitive and secret documents in February, Police Scotland Chief Constable Iain Livingstone ordered a review, called Operation Towering, which concluded there was nothing more to investigate because the SCDEA no longer existed and Police Scotland manage covert operations differently.
However, critics say the force has ignored allegations that senior officers ordered the immediate and extraordinary destruction of paperwork to conceal the chaos before the Crown Office could decide if fraud or any other crimes had been committed.
A Met Police review of Operation Towering did not share Police Scotland’s apparent conclusion that the burning of documents, against all standard operating procedures, was not a cover-up.
The Met review said: “The timely manner of the incineration, its closeness in time to a professional standards investigation into the SOU [Special Operations Unit] and the lack of any audit or record of destruction, throws sufficient doubt that this can be the only conclusion.”
The report came before the Scottish Police Authority board, which is responsible for holding the Chief Constable to account. Board member, Tom Halpin, said the Chief Constable needed to dispel any perception that police are “marking their own homework”.
Chairman of the Scottish Parliament’s policing committee John Finnie MSP has put the issue on the agenda for a meeting on Thursday when Liam McArthur, Lib Dem justice spokesman, intends to ask a number of questions which, critics say, have not so far been answered by Police Scotland or asked by the SPA.
And Liam Kerr, Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary, said he will lodge further questions at the Scottish Parliament today. Mr Kerr wants to know which officers were responsible for signing off on funds for the shambolic unit, and who ordered the burning of files.
He will also ask if prosecutors, who decided no crime had been committed at the unit, had been aware potential evidence had been incinerated.
Mr Livingstone issued a general condemnation of the events at the SCDEA, including the management of the unit and the burning of documents as “outrageous” but did not comment on claims of a deliberate cover-up by senior officers.
Mr Kerr said: “It is staggering that such high level individuals have now condemned this behaviour and still so many questions remain.
“I have therefore tabled a series of questions in the Scottish parliament.
“It is crucial Police Scotland operates with full transparency, and they must now clear up this mess.”
Meanwhile, the former undercover police officer who ran the chaotic undercover unit has denied claims he used SCDEA funds to extend a conference to play golf and to fund a trip to Northern Ireland for false reasons.
When The Post put the allegation to him, the former officer said: “Every time I was in Northern Ireland, it was for operational reasons.” He declined to comment on claims in the Met review that financial anomalies due to his lack of management of telephone and banking accounts totalled “in excess of £10,000”.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said yesterday it examined information provided by police but did not consider a prosecution as there was no evidence of any criminality.
It could not confirm whether prosecutors were aware of potential evidence of criminal activity being burned.
The incineration of secret and sensitive police files emerged during a £1 million civil action by a whistleblower, known in court as Mrs K. The former undercover officer successfully sued Police Scotland for unfairly freezing her out of her job and damaging her mental health. Police Scotland is appealing. Police Scotland declined to comment, referring us instead to comments made by the Chief Constable to the SPA.
After mounting its own investigation and asking the Met to review it, we asked Police Scotland this one on Friday. They referred us to what the Chief Constable, right, said on Wednesday. While condemning, in the most general terms, what took place at the SCDEA, he did not answer this question or any of the others.