Social media bureaucracy is ‘helping killers’

KILLERS could walk free because it is taking so long for the police to get crucial evidence from social media firms, a top murder detective has warned.

Det Ch Insp Glen Lloyd, one of Scotland Yard’s most experienced homicide officers, said the bureaucracy involved when dealing with many of the tech giants risked jeopardising justice.

He said it can take up to 18 months in some complex cases to get the material needed to secure a conviction.

But with custody time limits meaning most cases have to go to trial within six months of charges being laid, detectives are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the deadlines.

Earlier this month, Cressida Dick, the Met commissioner, suggested that tech giants should be forced to hand over crucial evidence “in minutes” after it emerged that Facebook had failed to cooperate with detectives investigating the murder of Lucy Mchugh, 13, in Southampton in July.

Hampshire Police have been forced to apply to the US courts to obtain the Facebook password for the main suspect after he refused to hand it over. Senior Scotland Yard officers insist they are not being blocked by social media firms themselves, but by bureaucratic process involved when dealing with companies based overseas.

Explaining the process detectives have to go through to obtain information, DCI Lloyd said: “It is very much dependent on where this evidence is held. Very often it is the US, so then it is liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), getting an international letter of request to go via the Homes Office to the respective country that holds that data and then getting the authority from that country’s law enforcement to approach the company.

“It is quite a slow bureaucratic process and one of the challenges with that process is when you have got someone charged, you have got custody time limits, generally around six months, which means it is sometimes very, very difficult to get the evidence. The challenge often comes when that evidence comes back and then we realise we need further evidence and we maybe have to start that process again.

“I think the whole process was not designed for the fast data media world that we now live in.”

Martin Hewitt, Scotland Yard assistant commissioner, said he was working hard with other agencies, including the CPS, to streamline the process and make it easier to get vital information.

He said: “We would want greater and quicker access to all potential social media evidence. There is a whole load of work going on – we are doing it in the Met, but also nationally, working with the social media platforms to try to get us to a place where they can be as helpful to law enforcement.”