Ex-cops on £33 an hour to probe claims
FORMER police officers are being paid up to £1,300 a week – £64,000 a year – to investigate soldiers for alleged crimes during the Iraq War, it can be revealed.
They will be tasked with filtering the thousands of claims submitted by law firms claims and quizzing former and serving soldiers about their actions on the battlefield a decade ago.
They are part of a team of 145 investigators working for the taxpayer-funded Iraq Historical Allegations Team (IHAT) in Wiltshire.
Last night it also emerged the former police officer leading the investigation is paid double by the taxpayer. As well as his unpublished salary, Mark Warwick is also entitled to a police pension, which will be in the tens of thousands a year.
The Government has set aside £57.2million for the nine-year inquiry, which was set up by the Ministry of Defence in 2010, when there were just 152 claims. In December last year the MoD awarded a new two-year contract to a recruiting firm to find specialist investigators.
In the same month, Red Snapper Recruiting Limited posted advertisements for at least seven different roles on several sites, including one aimed at ex-police officers.
It said the ‘pay scales are above market rates’ and said workers who needed to rent local accommodation would be paid an ‘enhanced rate’.
Salaries for the positions start at £16.77 an hour and range up to £32.82 an hour – or over £1,300 a week based on eight hours work a day. One position aimed at former police officers was the role of a senior investigating officer. They are also hir- ing an intelligence analyst, an intelligence researcher and investigator.
Mr Warwick retired in 2014 after 33 years’ service, probably on a generous final salary pension scheme with the option of taking a lump sum worth tens of thousands of pounds.
His final frontline role was in charge of the South East counter-terrorism unit and he will have been earning around £79,000 a year.
Among the 145 workers, there are a small number of Royal Navy police officers and civil servants. Up to 127 workers are specialist investigative personnel employed under a contract.
An IHAT spokesman said: ‘There has been no significant change to the size or structure of the IHAT, but recruitment is sometimes necessary to fill vacancies which arise through natural wastage. The rates of pay offered to contracted personnel is a matter for the Red Snapper Group.’