Another shocking Dorset Police AND Devon and Cornwall Police coverup starts...

After my last attempt to get some honesty and accountability from Dorset Police was totally buried by Dorset Police and the various police regulators and others (see the links on the left) my energies were occupied elsewhere for a while. But in 2019 I came across some fake news about Dorset Police achieving a 30% road death and serious injury reduction. I couldn't let that pass. A few months on, it is clear that this is going to end up in yet another classic large scale coverup.

So here I will present just an overview of the main parts so far with links to the main documents and some additional comments:

Jan 2019: Dorset Police announces that it has achieved a 30% KSI reduction. The level of self congratulation is remarkable. The financial cost of this "success" is mentioned by Martyn Underhill along with the wish to "sustain" this fake reduction. This misrepresentation of safety benefit comes from PCC Martyn Underhill, Chief Constable James Vaughan, and Adrian Leisk, Head of the Road Safety Alliance (and Chief Inspector Devon and Cornwall Police) Note that Martyn Underhill has a personal interest in a "charity" that he is making driver awareness course money available to, and that these police driver courses have now been shown not to provide any measurable casualty reduction improvement. So Underhill has a personal interest in sustaining police activities that achieve nothing against the stated claims. 

Sep / Oct 2019: I notice this fake news and release an article exposing it, also commenting on the fact that Chief Constable James Vaughan doesn't seem to know if the £120 Dorset Police driver course has any benefit. I also raise a formal complaint against James Vaughan, and Martyn Underhill (to the Dorset Police and Crime panel).

20 Sep 2019: I get a reply from Simon Bullock, who works directly under Martyn Underhill, who tried to shut the complaint down referring to a letter written to me 5 years ago, but recognising that due to the time passed, it would be right to consider the complaint. His "consideration" is an absolute classic of ignoring the facts and the points, and just doing what is best for his boss. They refused to even record the complaint. My response, an appeal to the IOPC for refusing to record, and the nonsense from Simon Bullock, can be seen here    

The complaint also went to Devon and Cornwall Police due to the involvement of Adrian Leisk in this misrepresentation. I've seen some nonsense from Dorset Police but what came back from Devon is right up there. The complaint was dealt with by "local resolution" when such serious matters should have gone directly to the IOPC, and the LR that resulted was a farce, not only failing to face ANY of the points in the complaint but failing also to bring ANY of the LR outcomes, and even allowing the misrepresentation to remain! And it said that "Chief Inspector Leisk is not responsible for the interpretation of the data that is produced" Yes Really!! So don't believe anything a senior police officer tells you as they are not responsible for it!!

Here is the resulting appeal back to Devon and Cornwall

So now we have a long, long wait while the wheels grind round at D&C appeals and the IOPC, let's see if the IOPC is any better than the IPCC was, I have to say I am not very optimistic! Watch this space.....

Nov 2019: I have heard back from Devon and Cornwall Police. This is quite astonishing. Having upheld my appeal against their first Local Resolution, there now seems to be a proper understanding of my complaint and a clear statement about the investigation which will take place, which if it happens as stated, is likely to uncover what really happened and make recommendations to prevent it happening again, in other words, what actually should happen! Never seen anything like this in 15 years from Dorset. Well done Devon and Cornwall! Of course my previous complaint against Dorset initially looked positive from the Head of Professional Standards at Hampshire, then it was covered up, so we will see.

This also demonstrates that the refusal by Underhill to even record the complaint, now shown to be correct and justified, is as it looked, just another attempt to bury serious misconduct, appalling behaviour from the one person entrusted with making Dorset Police accountable to the public.

Jan 2020: Predictably, the IOPC coverup the complaint against the Chief Constable James Vaughan and the complaint against the PCC Martyn Baker While they agree that the complaint was neither vexatious or oppressive, they feel that it is an "abuse of the complaints process" giving a number of reasons they feel that the complaint is a repeat of one about 6 years ago against Chief constable Martin Baker which the IOPC (then IPCC) also covered up. However they have "overlooked" the simple fact that the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2012 states that the complaint cannot be repetitious:

"(3) For the purposes of paragraph (2)(d) a complaint is repetitious if, and only if— (c) no fresh evidence, being evidence which was not reasonably available at the time the previous complaint was made, is tendered in support of it"

 “if, and only if—” means all conditions have to apply, and as you can see above, I have presented plenty of fresh evidence.

Here is my response on the Chief Constable Vaughan complaint  

Here is my response on the PCC Underhill complaint

Jan 2020 Despite my earlier optimism about Devon and Cornwall dealing with the complaint properly, I receive a response which has to be seen to be believed . Basically, Inspector Pete Thomas is just trying to confuse the issue by saying that some of the figures are for collisions not casualties and then saying that persons thought the numbers were right but apologise if they are not. Good grief, after all this time they still don't seem to know if their numbers are right or wrong and still seem not to care that bold statements of success have been made which are totally false. The "mistakes" remain unidentified and all those who contributed to that appalling misinformation protected.  

I knew this was going to end in coverup but this is ridiculous. Here is my reply / appeal

The IPOC part of this complaint can now go nowhere but Judicial review which I am looking into and I will appeal to Devon and Cornwall but that is obviously going to go nowhere. Possibly it will end up at the IOPC but we know what will happen then.

March 2020 I receive a further response from Devon and Cornwall , my predictions were correct, D & C have completely shut down the complaint, they have chosen for the lies of Adrian Leisk, Martyn Underhill and James Vaughan to stay in public view, and for these 3 to be protected. Utterly disgusting. I have now asked D&C PCC Alison Hernandez to sort out this corruption and protection of serious misconduct.

A week later I had heard nothing. Mid March, as the Coronavirus disaster started to become serious, I wrote again saying that although I was very dissapointed not to have heard from the person with the responsibility of making the police accountable to the public, I would suspend this enquiry until some normality had returned.