Probe into police chief finds no misconduct

A SENIOR West Yorkshire Police officer being investigated over her business relationship with serving and retired colleagues was guilty of nothing more than a “minor technical breach” of policy, a report has concluded.

Assistant Chief Constable Ingrid Lee came under scrutiny after the Sunday Telegraph reported that she is the director of an overseas property company with four serving or retired officers from the force.

West Yorkshire Police referred the matter to Nick Gargan, the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police, to carry out an independent investigation into her involvement with the firm.

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Mrs Lee, who carried out the Operation Newgreen review into her force’s relationship with Jimmy Savile, was not suspended while the probe was carried out.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “We can confirm that an independent investigation by Chief Constable Nick Gargan regarding the business interests of Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Ingrid Lee has been completed.

“It has not identified any performance or misconduct issues in relation to her (other than a minor technical breach of the Force’s Business Interests policy) or any other employee of West Yorkshire Police.”

The spokesman said the report was with Chief Constable Mark Gilmore but that the force could not go into any more detail about what was in it or what further action would be taken. He declined to reveal what the ‘minor breach’ of force’s policy was.

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The investigation looked at whether Mrs Lee followed guidelines which say business dealings by serving officers must be declared and cannot present an appearance of allowing an officer to be unduly influenced.

Mrs Lee is one of 14 directors of Oree Activite, according to the Sunday Telegraph, while four others are former or serving police officers. She was previously a director of a second company which had three other officers as directors.