Why did cops not investigate son’s death properly?
Family demand answers from force
BY MARCELLO MEGA reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk
A FAMILY seeking justice after almost 23 years for a loved one they believe was murdered want an English police force to consider whether failures of Scottish officers and prosecutors were criminal.
Kevin McLeod, 24, died in the harbour at Wick in February 1997. His family will meet with Merseyside Assistant Chief Constable Ian Critchley and Kevin Clague, head of the force’s serious crime review unit, in Inverness tomorrow as the force prepares to reinvestigate the death.
As well as asking them to establish who killed Kevin, his parents Hugh and June and uncle Allan will demand they focus on the actions of Scottish police and Crown officials.
Allan said last night: “It must be addressed why the procurator fiscal and the Crown Office failed to ensure that the specific instruction to police to launch a murder investigation was followed through.
“We also need to know why, during many meetings, the family was never told of the instruction.”
The pathologist conducting the post-mortem examination on Kevin’s body found he had a burst liver and internal bleeding, consistent with a beating, but police officers said he might have run into a bollard.
Despite the pathology, numerous witness statements and no shortage of suspects named to police, Northern Constabulary wouldn’t shift from its initial position of accidental death.
Among the issues the family want to be addressed is why the Crown stated in 2012 that the investigation had never been considered a murder inquiry. They finally learned the truth in December 2017 from current Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, then the deputy chief constable, who said Police Scotland accepted fully that the instruction had been given and that Northern Constabulary had failed to act. Allan said: “Failure by both police and the Crown to investigate Kevin’s death as murder was gross criminal negligence of the worst kind and perverted the course of justice, which is a serious crime. The Crown and police have Kevin’s blood on their hands.
“We want his killer brought to justice, but also people who failed him brought to account.”
The Crown has assured the family that if credible evidence of criminality on the part of police officers did emerge “it is likely to be in the public interest to take action as it relates to an abuse of a position of trust”.
The family have also been told that any evidence of “prosecutorial misconduct or error” would be raised with the Lord Advocate.
We want the people who failed him brought to account
KEVIN’S UNCLE ALLAN ON DEATH PROBE