Police sex and drugs inquiry kept from authority

West Yorkshire Police Authority was charged more than £2.3m for a five-year inquiry which found detectives corrupted a murder trial by showering supergrass Karl Chapman with inappropriate perks to ensure he gave evidence.

But the authority, which is supposed to hold the region’s largest police force to account, never received even a copy of the findings, nor the outcome of an independent review that ruled none of the officers involved should be disciplined.

The failings are disclosed in a report which was ordered last year after a Supreme Court judge found police took part in a “shocking and disgraceful” conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the case of Paul Maxwell, who murdered 85-year-old Joe Smales in Wakefield in 1996.

Maxwell and his brother, Daniel Mansell, were originally found guilty of the attack after a trial in 1998 but the convictions were quashed in 2009 on the grounds they had been “procured by gross prosecutorial misconduct”.

The acquittals followed an independent inquiry, conducted by North Yorkshire Police, that found Chapman, a key witness with more than 200 robbery convictions, had been allowed to visit brothels, take heroin and cannabis, and begin a sexual relationship with a policewoman.

The investigation, which ran from July 2002 until 2007 under the codename Operation Douglas, also found Chapman enjoyed immunity from prosecution for a series of violent crimes, including an assault on the policewoman after they had split up and the rape of his cellmate in prison.

Maxwell eventually pleaded guilty to the murder on the first day of a retrial last year, but West Yorkshire Police is conducting a fresh review of the evidence on how Chapman was handled under the supervision of the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

If that uncovers more allegations of misconduct, the IPCC may begin its own independent investigation, which could result in charges being brought against the officers, all of whom were based at Killingbeck police station in Leeds but have since left the service.

Such a move would probably involve the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which had also reviewed the case and concluded there was “insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction” against any officer.

The case is understood to have cost the taxpayer at least £3m so far. North Yorkshire Police sent West Yorkshire Police Authority a bill for £2,335,000.

The new report summarises a study of the case by a four-strong “scrutiny group” of police authority members, which was set up after the Yorkshire Post revealed the damaging allegations last July.

It found the authority did not appear to have been kept informed formally on the progress of Operation Douglas and, although the inquiry was discussed privately at meetings, minutes were not kept.

Retired Labour politician Bill O’Brien, who was Mr Smales’s MP, said he was “aghast” at the report’s contents and renewed his call for former officers involved in the case to be prosecuted.

“At least this has come out now,” he said, “but any people who were responsible for misleading the authority or covering up the investigation deserve sentences which are commensurate to the crimes they have committed.

“I am pleased this report has been published and await the next one, and I look forward to seeing what the CPS are going to do about it.”

The police authority’s chairman, Mark Burns-Williamson, who ordered the report, said: “I am absolutely confident, given the structures we have had in place for some time, that there is no way anything like this would happen now,” he added.

“But, of course, when you look at these things in hindsight, there were mistakes made along the way with regard to formal reporting and it clearly went on far longer than it should have done.

“I don’t think there has necessarily been deliberate withholding of information, but this is something that was investigated a long time ago and it has been allowed to roll on.”

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “We have worked closely with the Police Authority scrutiny group and we feel the recommendations concerning communication and reporting are both useful and constructive.”