Former police boss will not be charged over perjury allegations
FORMER SOUTH Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Shaun Wright will face no further action after a 14-month investigation found “insufficient evidence” to support allegations he had committed perjury when discussing the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal with MPs.
A 26-page report published by the Independent Office for Police Conduct yesterday revealed Mr Wright refused to answer questions while being interviewed about the allegations under criminal caution in April this year after reading a prepared statement in which he denied lying under oath to MPs.
“He then exercised his right not to answer any further questions during his interview,” the report said.
The IOPC said it would not making a referral to the Director of Public Prosecutions after the watchdog investigated complaints from two people that Mr Wright had committed perjury when giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on September 9, 2014.
The hearing took place when he was still police and crime commissioner but was facing widespread calls to resign in the wake of the publication of a damning inquiry which had revealed at least 1,400 children in Rotherham had been sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013.
Mr Wright gave evidence under oath regarding his knowledge of allegations of widespread child sexual abuse in Rotherham during his time as cabinet member for children’s services at Rotherham Council, between 2005 and 2010.
The IOPC investigation considered four areas – whether Mr Wright had lied when he stated he did not receive reports detailing the extent of CSE in Rotherham; whether he had lied when stating he did not recall speaking to any abuse survivors at a barbecue organised by council youth service Risky Business; whether he lied by stating he had not taken legal advice for the answers he was giving to MPs and whether he lied by stating he was not aware of the extent of CSE in Rotherham when he was a council cabinet member.
The IOPC said: “On the basis of the investigation report there is insufficient evidence to indicate that Mr Wright either knew his statement to be false or did not believe it to be true.”
Mr Wright resigned as police commissioner a week after the select committee hearing following repeated calls to step down.
South Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel, which holds the local police and crime commissioner to account, received complaints against Mr Wright in 2015 and referred them to the police watchdog, then known as the IPCC.
The watchdog initially refused to investigate the complaints and referred them to the Home Affairs Select Committee but subsequently reconsidered and opened an investigation, which began in June 2017 and concluded in August 2018.
In relation to the allegation Mr Wright had met with abuse survivors, the first complainant said they had witnessed him speaking with survivors of CSE at a barbecue for Risky Business.
The second complainant, a survivor of CSE, said they spoke to Mr Wright about their experiences of abuse in Rotherham.
The IOPC report said the second complainant had “declined to give a statement in relation to this investigation” to the watchdog.
The IOPC report said the watchdog’s investigator had been unable to get hold of a copy of Risky Business signing-in book which Complainant A had suggested may have recorded Mr Wright’s attendance because “records have been destroyed or removed”. It added other abuse victims said to have been present at the barbecue had been “unwilling to provide a statement to the IOPC at this time”.
Last year, Mr Wright was among the former senior councillors and officers at Rotherham Council criticised for their “miserable silence” after refusing or ignoring requests to participate in a series of inquiries ordered by the authority into how abuse victims in the town were failed.
There is insufficient evidence he knew his statement to be false. Referral decision, Independent Office for Police Conduct report