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AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY will be launched into the “systematic failures” that allowed Sarah Everard’s killer to be employed as a police officer, the UK Home Secretary has announced.
Speaking at the Conservative Party conference, Priti Patel said the public needs answers to ensure “something like this can never happen again” after Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens kidnapped, raped and murdered the 33-year-old marketing executive.
She said: “The public have a right to know what systematic failures enabled his continued employment as a police officer.
“We need answers as to why this was allowed to happen.
“I can confirm today there will be an inquiry, to give the independent oversight needed, to ensure something like this can never happen again.”
Patel claimed she has “redoubled” her efforts to help make women and girls feel safer, telling the conference in Manchester today: “All our thoughts remain with Sarah Everard’s family and friends.
“Her murderer, whose name I will not repeat, was a monster. His explicit intention was to instil fear and terror in women and girls.
“I say this as Home Secretary, but also as a woman – such unconscionable crimes and acts of violence against women and girls have no place in our society.
“That is why I have redoubled my efforts to ensure women and girls feel safer.”
The Home Office said the inquiry will be made up of two parts – first examining Couzens’ previous behaviour and establishing a “definitive account of his conduct leading up to his conviction, as well as any opportunities missed, drawing on the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s (IOPC) investigations, once concluded.”
The second will look at any specific problems raised by the first part of the inquiry, which could include wider issues across policing – such as vetting practices, professional standards and discipline, and workplace behaviour.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said the inquiry must leave “no stone unturned” and must “also address reports of widespread cultural issues”, adding: “We must stamp out misogyny, sexism, racism and homophobia, root out those who abuse their trusted position as officers, and ensure that tackling violence against women and girls is treated with the highest priority.”
Labour’s Yvette Cooper, the chairwoman of the Commons Home Affairs committee, said the inquiry was “very welcome” and it was “important that it looks more widely at handling of allegations of violence against women and girls by police officers and staff. Real concerns that these are not dealt with properly – vital that they are in order to ensure women’s safety and rebuild trust.”
Patel will also commission another inspection of vetting and anti-corruption procedures in policing in England and Wales to be carried out by the watchdog Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
This will also look at how forces detect and deal with “misogynistic and predatory behaviour”.
Initial findings are expected by the end of this year in order to inform the inquiry.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is launching a taskforce led by the Home Secretary to see action taken across government to tackle violence against women and girls, which will meet for the first time in the autumn.
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DNA matching is nothing new to the Irish dating scene. Something we’re trying to move away from you might even say.
@Winston Smith: LOL
@Winston Smith:
True.
The gene pool in my parent’s homeplace was shallow enough to paddle in.
Everybody seemed to be a cousin of some sort to everybody else there!
@Michael Kavanagh: “Kevin Bacon” six degrees of separation!!
@Colette Kearns:
Believe me – when it come to acquaintance (especially knowing the bad news) their colective Bacon Number there is a big fat one!
It sounds like another marvelously inventive way for companies to get access to your DNA profile. Be very wary of parting with this information!
@Sean: if a big pharma company bought millions of people’s DNA and then used that to research and find a cure for say, cancer, would you find that unethical? I wouldn’t
@niamh ryan: you believe their goal is always to cure everything…. interesting..!!!
@niamh ryan:with or without permission?
@Bluey: in an ideal world with permission. Specifically for medical research purposes. But I suppose once you hand it over you lose control of it
@Ian Scott: and you think their goal is……
@niamh ryan: to be fair their goal is to generate as much money as possible for as long as possible. Whoever thinks pharma companies are looking to make the world a better place is naive.
@niamh ryan: big pharma finding a cure for something they make millions off…lol…
@David Daly: they are a business of course they are out to make money. They invest billions in research and have a right to charge for their products. Certain types of cancer are no longer an automatic death sentence, people living full lives with HIV, huge breakthroughs in parkinsonism ect. They are making the world a better place for profit. It would be naive to think that anybody would do it for free
@niamh ryan: The Pharma company would would need to know who got cancer and what type of cancer they got in the DNA sample population for it to be useful. You have presented something of a false but meaningless argument here. What is more likely is that the data would be bought by a life insurance company which could then have very real implications for your children or grandchildren. They could be refused a mortgage (based on being refused life cover) because of an increased risk of certain inherited diseases in your DNA. Why not?
The millennials are to busy flicking between pages on their phones as to flicking between the sheets
@dick dastardly: ah sure you’re still pining over Penelope Pitstop.
@Keelan O’neill: now there’s a cartoon character u cud hang ur wet duffle coat on……….(or words to that effect)
They need DNA testing as the amount of people in towns who have the same biological father is crazy now… That was a joke once but no longer…
@TamuMassif2019: are you speaking from experience??
@TamuMassif2019:
You the Daddy?
Some enchanted evening , you may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger, across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somehow you’ll see her , again and again…..
Much more romantic way to meet.
@Aine O Connor:
Yup.
Then you go and spoil it all
By saying something stupid like
I’ll swab you.
Genetic profile for romance, hardly. However what a genetic profile App will do is flash warning lights as regards inherited problems, like for instance both parties being CF carriers. That doesn’t need to kill the romance, but it does give the option of going I.V., and screening the embryos before implantation, thus leaving the problem behind. Likewise various of the genes that pre dispose to cancers of one sort or another.
Tinder or what ever app. If you want to meet a serial killer, I’d say it’s a pretty good way.
This country is so inbred it’s new DNA we need!
have your say