| The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry | |||
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR COMMANDER PERRY NOVE 34.1 We have already indicated that the strategy followed by Mr Mellish came jointly from Commander Perry Nove and Mr Mellish himself. Mr Nove was in close touch with Assistant Commissioner Ian Johnston from the start of his involvement in the case, and both the Assistant Commissioner and Mr Nove determined that whatever the second investigation needed it was going to get. 34.2 Mr Johnston had asked Mr Nove to take a completely fresh look at the case and to advise him whether there were any practical new steps that could be taken to bring the case to a successful conclusion. 34.3 The evidence of Mr Nove was refreshing, intelligent and clear. He told us how he saw the matter, and of his instructions and conversations with Mr Mellish. Thereafter Mr Mellish was the SIO, so that the practical application of the new strategy was down to Mr Mellish. 34.4 Mr Nove personally took on the liaison with Mr & Mrs Lawrence and Mr Khan. It is illuminating to see the careful and full notes of the meetings which took place in this regard. There is no need to go through the notes in detail, but it is apparent that Mr Nove sensitively and fully went through the possible steps that might be taken in the second investigation with Mr & Mrs Lawrence, and did his best to remedy the deep damage that had been caused by the unsuccessful liaison between the police and Mr & Mrs Lawrence during the first investigation. He was able to reverse the negative attitudes which had been shown to the family, and to produce a positive relationship, for which the family thanked him. 34.5 Mr Nove was particularly surprised to find that Mr & Mrs Lawrence had never met the SIO in charge of the case. He discovered the depth of Mr & Mrs Lawrence's dissatisfaction with the police. Mr Weeden was present at the first of these meetings and the note of the meeting of 3 May indicates that Mr Weeden showed Mrs Lawrence his letter written on 27 April 1993, inviting her to see him should she so wish. 34.6 Mr Nove and Mr Johnston discussed after the meeting the importance of trying to get some of the confidence of the family back. They appreciated that trust had been totally lost, and it was decided that Mr Nove would personally continue the necessary and vital liaison. Mr & Mrs Lawrence were in the summer of 1994 very disappointed and frustrated and bitter that the criminal justice system had failed to deliver the result which they so fervently hoped to achieve. 34.7 This was, said Mr Nove, the first major investigation in his experience where there had been no sort of reasonable relationship between the investigators and the victims. And he fully appreciated, as his minutes show, all the relevant and understandable complaints made by Mr & Mrs Lawrence. Mr Nove told us that in his view Mr & Mrs Lawrence were "absolutely right about what they were complaining about". Furthermore he was critical of the senior officers above the SIO at the relevant time. He said for example that the Commander (Operations) for the Area should be wanting to seek regular briefing as to what was going on, in order that his influence as a more senior officer could be brought to bear. Commander Gibson's statement, which was before the Inquiry, made no mention of any activity to seek such briefing or to challenge the activities of the investigating team, with the assistance and input of the Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Mr Osland. It is right to say that Mr Gibson was not asked to look back upon the case until several years afterwards. 34.8 The truth is that Mr Nove is a most sensitive officer who did all that he could to try to win back the confidence of Mr & Mrs Lawrence and indeed of Mr Khan. He never found Mr Khan to be obstructive. It was his skill and understanding that ensured a reasonable relationship between the police and Mr & Mrs Lawrence and Mr Khan in the lead up to the decision made by them to conduct a private prosecution. Early in 1995 Mr Nove left the MPS and he handed over his duties to Mr Griffiths. 34.9 Mr Nove was of course not involved in the detail of the second investigation. That was left in the capable hands of Mr Mellish. So that Mr Nove himself did not know about James Grant, and other details of the investigation were not strictly a matter for him. 34.10 As to the Barker Review Mr Nove said that such a Review should be "bold and probative". Furthermore at the end of his questioning by Miss Weekes in connection with that Review Mr Nove accepted that police officers do have a tendency to protect each other. This is what he called "a cultural legacy of the old police service". Reviews are, said Mr Nove, becoming somewhat more frequent in police forces generally now. The police certainly in his experience are encouraging and supporting open reporting, and there is a strong move to break down the culture of self-protection "by leadership, by stressing the importance of professionalism, and on each and every occasion stressing the importance of our duty to the victim and to the public". 34.11 As to the December 1994 surveillance Mr Nove indicated through Mr Mansfield that he had become anxious about the possible leak of information as to the surveillance operation. He believed that the suspects evidently knew that they were being bugged, and that this was the result of their knowledge of the sequence of interventions which had already taken place. He referred to the arrest of Clifford Norris, the arrest of Jamie Acourt after an alleged night club stabbing and the detection of the importation of drugs into the remand centre where Jamie Acourt was based. He believed that the suspects were appreciating that their fortune had changed, and that in addition they were deeply suspicious because the landlord had let somebody into the flat in their absence. 34.12 Mr Nove always accepted that this terrible murder was totally motivated by racism. Mr Nove expressed his anger about a minute which had been prepared by the MPS solicitor which might have suggested that he had different views as to this. Mr Nove was rightly indignant about any such suggestion, and he required the minute to be amended. We have no doubt whatsoever but that Mr Nove was both sensitive and alert to the necessity to treat crime motivated by racism with care and understanding. In his case the facts speak for themselves. He did manage to create a relationship with Mr & Mrs Lawrence and Mr Khan which is wholly to his credit. 34.13 Mr Nove confirmed to Miss Woodley that it was right to say that the second investigation was in a considerably better position from the point of view of resourcing than the first. 34.14 Mr Nove agreed, in answer to Mr Egan on behalf of the Federated officers, that his criticism of family liaison was primarily a criticism of the more senior officers. Junior officers do what they are told and adopt what he called the "can do philosophy". It is the job of the senior officers to ensure that the proper people are performing the roles to which they are allotted, and that the roles are being satisfactorily carried out. 34.15 Mr Nove commissioned what has been called the Selwood Report. This is a report which was prompted by articles in 'Private Eye' and elsewhere about DS Crowley and his part in this case and in the Rolan Adams murder. Mr Nove asked Superintendent Selwood, who was a Complaints Superintendent in the MPS, to carry out an investigation and to report by 2 June 1994. Mr Nove was under no illusions about the fact that the Report was produced in "short order". On the other hand the object of the exercise was to check out the facts and to try to establish quickly "who said what, and with which and to whom". 34.16 The implications were of course serious. Either the matter was as DS Crowley had reported it, in which case he would have been guilty of suppression of evidence in the most serious way if he had not passed on the content of his conversation with Mr Brooks; alternatively if he had deliberately contrived the situation to undermine Mr Brooks' credibility that would be gross misconduct. It is true that Mr Selwood did not consider the possibility of corruption or misunderstanding in his deliberation. But he did carry out a balancing exercise, including a comparison of that which Mr Brooks agreed that he had said compared with that which DS Crowley reported Mr Brooks as having said. The areas of disagreement were comparatively narrow, as we have observed elsewhere. Mr Macdonald examined the Report in some detail. Mr Nove very fairly accepted that there were limitations in a Report produced with such speed, and in the absence of any interviews with the two persons involved. Such interviews were of course problematical since an interview with DS Crowley would have had disciplinary overtones. An interview with a potential witness of the importance of Mr Brooks would also have had its own problems. 34.17 In our opinion the Selwood Report is with all its limitations a relevant document, which by and large supports DS Crowley. The real test however, as we have repeatedly said, concerns the evidence given by the two persons involved both at committal and in particular at the Central Criminal Court. There the differences between the two versions diminished even further. The Judge at the Central Criminal Court decided the case not on any decision as to credibility between the two witnesses but on the evidence which was actually accepted by Mr Brooks. There were further fundamental flaws in connection with Mr Brooks' evidence which allowed the Judge to reach his decision without any total resolution of the differences between Mr Brooks and DS Crowley in connection with the fated conversation. 34.18 It is important to note that Mr Nove and Mr Johnston held similar views as to whether in the public interest the prosecution of Mr Brooks for his involvement in the events of 8 May 1993 should continue. Both of them saw value "for community tension and the confidence in the black community in a discontinuance of the proceedings against Brooks". Mr Nove and Mr Johnston did appreciate that there might be problems in terms of the credibility of Mr Brooks if the proceedings were to be discontinued. The comment would have been available to the defence that Mr Brooks had been done a favour by the CPS in order to keep his evidence firm. 34.19 There are arguments both ways. Mr Nove realised that, although it was his view that the better course would have been to have discontinued the prosecution of Mr Brooks. The ultimate decision was a matter for the CPS, as Mr Nove rightly accepted. Mr Nove believed that there was a clear public interest in conducting a prosecution of the suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder case. Inevitably the discrepancy between DS Crowley and Mr Brooks would be tested, as indeed it was at the trial. Mr Nove felt that the prosecution of Mr Brooks was a mistake. Mr Brooks, said Mr Nove, had been so traumatised and frustrated and dismayed by the murder that his actions could be interpreted as an unfortunate protest which had got out of hand, so that criminal proceedings seemed hardly justified. 34.20 Mr Nove accepted that most of the steps taken in the second investigation would in fact have been available during the first investigation, although he did indicate that there would have been some problems particularly in connection with the video surveillance which did not present themselves until Mr Dobson was allocated his convenient flat. Mr Nove also accepted that the prescribed obligation to conduct Reviews, set out in the AMIP policy, was honoured in the breach rather than in the observance in the MPS. There has never really been any satisfactory explanation given to the Inquiry as to why Reviews were not regularly and properly conducted. It remains a matter of serious concern that the MPS had formal policies which were simply not pursued. 34.21 The CPS had on 15 April 1994 reached for the second time the "unavoidable conclusion ..... that there is no prospect of a jury convicting anyone on the evidence available". They gave such support as they could to Mr & Mrs Lawrence's lawyers. It was neither the task nor the privilege of the MPS to make a decision on behalf of Mr & Mrs Lawrence's lawyers. 34.22 Mr Nove's part in this case is entirely to his credit. He did his best, with Mr Mellish, and with the encouragement of Assistant Commissioner Johnston, to salvage the sorry situation which met him in May 1994. That he was unable to achieve a successful prosecution was certainly not his fault. By the summer of 1994 the case was, as things turned out, beyond redemption.
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