Accusations of Met cover-up put more heat on Ian Blair
Whistleblowers accuse police of turning a blind eye to reports that
murdered special constable was running an escort agency
By Michael Gillard
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Sir Ian Blair faces a new investigation after whistleblowers accused the
already embattled Metropolitan Police Commissioner of turning "a blind
eye" to corruption allegations surrounding murdered Special Constable
Nisha Patel-Nasri.
It has emerged that in 2003, three years before her husband plotted the
murder, the Met had been alerted to a possible corrupt association
between the couple and a senior officer.
The tip-off came from a police sergeant in another force who sent three
detailed reports to the anti-corruption unit, which was then under Sir
Ian's command.
One report warned that the couple were running a prostitution racket and
had boasted of having protection high up in the police.
An IoS investigation can reveal that a senior officer based at Scotland
Yard was named in the second report. It said he had provided
confidential information about a client of the couple's escort agency,
Seventh Heaven, who owed money.
However, the claims were not investigated. And lawyers for Fadi Nasri,
who was convicted of his wife's murder in May, say that anti-corruption
detectives never questioned him.
Now, a whistleblower who worked on the murder inquiry claims she was
told not to research the corruption allegations. Tracy Clarke, a former
Met intelligence researcher, says she raised the matter with senior
officers because of concerns that Nasri, who was arrested nine months
after the murder, might use the police contact to compromise the
inquiry. "We already knew that we had a leak," she said on Friday.
In July, Ms Clarke made a formal complaint to London Mayor Boris Johnson
and the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). In her complaint, she asked
the watchdog: "What happened to the senior officer? I would suggest
absolutely nothing. While vast sums of money are spent on justifying the
existence of the anti-corruption command this is just one more piece of
evidence where a blind eye is turned, rather than have the Metropolitan
Police Service discredited.
On Friday, an MPA spokesperson confirmed it has asked the Met's anti-
corruption unit "to satisfy the authority that the investigation was
carried out to the highest standards and that no lines of inquiry were
left unexplored".
Sir Ian is already under investigation by the watchdog following
allegations of improper links with a businessman who was awarded Met
contracts.
These disclosures come as war broke out between Sir Ian and Assistant
Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, who is bringing an action for race
discrimination.
The Met told the IoS it never received the second report naming any
senior officer. However, Dave Eden, the Hertfordshire police sergeant
who wrote it, denied this. He said: "I am happy to co-operate with any
inquiry."
Sgt Eden's reports relate to a 999 call he had just attended. A client
of the escort agency was disputing a bill and Patel-Nasri, her husband
and two others had gone to his home in Elstree to recover the money.
The first document was an intelligence report in which Sgt Eden
complained that Patel-Nasri had misused her warrant card and
aggressively told him that her "powerful friends at Scotland Yard" would
get him the sack.
Separately, Sgt Eden wrote a report of the incident and his subsequent
actions. Fadi Nasri had given him the name of the senior Scotland Yard
officer who he claimed had provided confidential information about the
client. The next day, Sgt Eden contacted him. When he explained the
purpose of the call and mentioned Nasri's name, the officer hung up.
The third document was a witness statement he had taken from the client.
All three documents were created on a police computer 24 hours after the
incident. Sgt Eden sent printed copies of the three documents to the
anti-corruption unit at Scotland Yard, to Wembley police station, where
Patel-Nasri worked, and to Hertfordshire Police's professional standards
department.
The Met will only accept that it received Sgt Eden's intelligence report
on Patel-Nasri, who was subsequently disciplined for misusing her
warrant card to enforce a civil debt.
Inexplicably, the Met's anti-corruption unit never debriefed Sgt Eden.
And had he not made contact with the murder squad three years later,
says Ms Clarke, detectives would not have known about the escort agency
or any link with a senior Met officer.
It was Ms Clarke's job to research Sgt Eden's statement for the murder
inquiry. She could not access any of the Met's anti-corruption files. "I
felt the murder inquiry was warned off from pursuing Eden's statement
because it would take the Met down a corruption route it had covered
up," she said.
http://www.independ
coverup-put-
Sunday, 31 August 2008
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