Det. Superintendent Cleared By IPCC

Fri, 12 March 2010 Courtesy of: IPCC

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has not substantiated allegations that a Greater Manchester Police officer failed to disclose evidence at a fraud trial.

It was alleged Detective Superintendent Stephen Hassall submitted a misleading statement and failed to disclose information relating to the credibility of a key prosecution witness at the trial of Patrick Zengeya in July 2001.

At that trial he was convicted of two counts of attempting to obtain services by deception and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.

“The lack of real documentary evidence has led to a reliance on handwritten notes and the recollection of those involved”

The Court of Appeal quashed Mr Zengeya’s conviction on 6 May 2009 on the basis that there was a failure to disclose evidence at his original trial

The matter was referred to the IPCC by GMP on 11 March 2009 and a decision was taken to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations.

IPCC Commissioner Ms Naseem Malik said: This was a very difficult investigation. The lack of real documentary evidence has led to a reliance on handwritten notes and the recollection of those involved in the case at the time. There is simply no hard evidence to support any of the opinions put forward as to what might have happened.

However, what is clear is that disclosure prior to the trial does not appear to have been as efficient as it should have been. The fact Supt Hassall submitted an additional statement during the course of the trial would suggest there were some items the court was not fully aware of or required clarification. However there is no definitive evidence to show why this additional statement was submitted.

But, even given that, the evidence collated by the IPCC investigation would seem to suggest much of the evidence that is in dispute did come out at the trial.

Ms Malik added: Frustratingly for all involved in the investigation, the snippets of evidence are not backed up by strong hard facts.

These discrepancies in accounts and the absence of hard evidence means we cannot substantiate the allegations against Supt Hassall. The CCRC and Court of Appeal did cite issues with Supt Hassall within the remit of the matters they were considering. But we have conducted a thorough and detailed investigation of the available evidence, and revisited evidence considered by the CCRC. On the basis of that work we believe the allegations must be determined as not proven.

A copy of a Commissioner's Report outlining the findings from the investigation can be found at http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/index/resources/evidence_reports/investigation_reports.htm