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21/11/01 - Inquiry hears PC's
investigation was 'Inadequate'
Hendon & Finchley Times
A catalogue of errors by a woman police officer now training
recruits in Hendon meant the horrific abuse of eight-year-old
Victoria Climbie went unnoticed, an inquiry heard this
week.
Neil Garnham QC said PC Karen Jones, failed to investigate
adequately what has been described as one of the worst
cases of child abuse in British legal history.
PC Jones who is based at the Peel Centre in Aerodrome
Road and spent six years from 1987 as an officer in
West Hendon did not visit the girl's home for fear of
catching scabies. She also did not deal with allegations
Victoria had been beaten with a belt buckle, scalded
with hot water and sexually abused.
He said her entire handling of the case was based on
"the most enormous assumption" that a nurse's
memo which only noted Victoria was a possible victim
of emotional abuse, meant she was not being abused physically.
Victoria died in February last year after months of
torture at the hands of her great-aunt Marie Therese
Kouao and Kouao's boyfriend Carl Manning. The duo are
currently serving life sentences for murder.
PC Jones, who was attached to the Metropolitan Police
Child Protection Unit at Haringey, was assigned case
officer when Victoria was admitted to North Middlesex
Hospital with scalding injuries to her face and scars
believed to have been inflicted by a belt buckle.
But she let Victoria return to her killers' Tottenham
flat after receiving a nurse's memo which did not question
Kouao's version of events: that Victoria had poured
boiling water over herself to ease the itching caused
by her scabies.
"I regarded it [the investigation] as closed and
finished unless further evidence came to light,"
said PC Jones. "No-one ever indicated that a crime
had ever happened and no-one ever did."
Mr Garnham said: "You misinterpreted a memo from
a nurse dealing with emotional abuse as if it was a
medical report dealing with all of Victoria's complaints.
"You proceeded on an assumption about what that
memo meant which coloured the whole way you managed
the case thereafter."
He added: "I suggest to you that the whole of
your investigation into this alleged crime was inadequate."
The inquiry continues. |
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