Top detective tracks thug who beat up his son... but is disciplined by own force
WHEN Pete Jackson’s son was punched unconscious in an unprovoked attack, the senior detective thought he could rely on his police colleagues to catch the attacker.
Thomas Jackson, 18, had been waiting for a taxi home after a night out when the shaven-headed, musclebound thug lashed out, breaking his jaw and almost killing him.
But as the university student lay bloodied and bandaged in hospital, his father was told the case was going to be closed because there was no CCTV footage of the incident only nine hours earlier and no other lines of inquiry.
Mr Jackson, a detective superintendent with almost 30 years’ experience, wasn’t prepared to accept this – and quickly found that the aftermath of the attack had been captured on CCTV. The evidence forced officers to reopen the case, and led to violent serial thug Anthony Bamgbose being jailed for 23 months.
But, instead of being commended, Mr Jackson was placed under investigation himself for ‘inappropriate involvement in the inquiry’. Now retired from Greater Manchester Police the father of four yesterday told of his shock at how he was treated.
‘The standard of the investigation was a disgrace,’ he said. ‘In fact, there was no real investigation at all. Without my intervention, a really dangerous man wouldn’t have been brought to justice.
‘If one of my team had said there were no lines of inquiry on an assault, I would have told them to go back and check again. I was disgusted by what happened to me. My son could easily have died, and yet the most basic checks weren’t done, instead I was the one targeted for investigation.’
Thomas, now in his final year studying chemistry at Leeds University, had been on a night out in Manchester with two friends in July 2014 when he was attacked at a taxi rank in
‘The investigation was a disgrace’
bustling Albert Square in the early hours of the morning.
After being told that the case was being closed, his father went to the scene of the attack, stood in his son’s dried blood – and immediately saw two cameras outside a pub that monitored the taxi rank.
He got the manager to play the previous night’s CCTV, and found footage of the aftermath of the attack and the attacker fleeing to a nearby nightclub.
Mr Jackson, who headed his force’s major incident team, said: ‘I was waiting for the results of a brain scan to find out if Thomas had suffered permanent damage, and yet just hours after the attack I was being told there was no CCTV – I just didn’t believe it.’
Bamgbose, 28, of Gorton, Manchester, was jailed for causing grievous bodily harm – the second of three convictions for attacking revellers in the past two years.
Thomas spent a week in hospital and had to have two metal plates inserted into his jaw but made a full recovery.
His father – who had previously turned whistleblower and made a series of allegations about senior officers – was made the subject of an internal disciplinary inquiry.
The six-month investigation found there was no evidence he had directly accessed information on Bamgbose on police computer systems.
It concluded that angry comments he aimed at colleagues over the standard of the investigation had been ‘poor judgement’ rather than a disciplinary offence. He received ‘constructive developmental feedback’.
In a statement, Deputy Chief Constable Ian Pilling said the investigation into the assault on Thomas Jackson had identified ‘poor investigative practice and learnings’. He added: ‘Three officers received management action as a result.’