A biography of Hamish Campbell, the man chosen to head Operation Grange

PART ONE 

A biography of Hamish Campbell, the man chosen to head Operation Grange


by Tony Bennett, 28 April 2014


Introduction


This article is an examination of the man chosen as the Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Grange, the review of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Its remit was eventually prised out of the Metropolitan Police by means of a Freedom of a Freedom of Information Act question. It was:

“To examine the [disappearance of Madeleine McCann] and seek to determine (as if the abduction occurred in the UK) what additional, new investigative approaches we would take and which can assist the Portuguese authorities in progressing the matter….The ‘investigative review’ will be conducted with transparency, openness and thoroughness”.

Although when the investigation had been archived in Portugal two main alternatives were suggested - either abduction, or the hiding of Madeleine’s body by her parents - those who set up Operation Grange were clear. From the Prime Minister to the Home Secretary to the then head of the Met, Sir Paul Stephenson, abduction was the only hypothesis to be investigated. The review, as the Prime Minister’s spokesman clarified, was ‘to help the family’  (the McCanns).

Every police investigation or review of a serious crime has an investigation co-ordinator, known as the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO), and a deputy, called the Investigating Officer (IO). The role of the SIO is to set an investigation strategy and to decide and obtain the resources he needs to do  the work required – in this case, a review. The job of the IO is basically to carry out the agreed strategy and to direct operations.

Sir Paul Stephenson decided to appoint one Hamish Campbell as the SIO, with an additional requirement for the SIO to present his report to one Simon Foy. Andy Redwood, a Detective Chief Inspector, was appointed as the IO. Before long, Campbell and Redwood determined that they would need a staff of around 35 to 40 to carry out the review.

The main purpose of this article is to look at the background history and connections of Hamish Campbell.   


The murder of Jill Dando


Seven years ago, on 28 April 2007, the McCanns set off from East Midlands Airport for their ill-fated holiday in the Portuguese Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

It was also on 28 April, 15 years ago, in 1999, that TV Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando was shot dead at point-blank range in a killing that had all the hallmarks of a professional contract killing.

Two individuals connected with the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann were also connected with the investigation into the murder of Jill Dando.

They are:

Clarence Mitchell - who was at the time working for the BBC as their senior crime reporter. He was apparently the very first reporter at the scene of the crime, and covered the investigation into Jill Dando’s murder in the months following her death

Hamish Campbell - who was the investigation’s IO - placed in charge of the day-to-day investigation into Jill Dando’s murder in 1999. He was primarily responsible for the arrest and charging of Barry Bulsara, known also as ‘Barry George’, with the murder of Dando. Bulsara was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Jill Dando but subsequently acquitted, seven years later, on appeal.

Years later…

Clarence Mitchell, three days after Madeleine McCann was reported missing, was asked by then Prime Minister Tony Blair to cease his full-time job as Head of the Media Monitoring Unit and work full-time on public relations and reputation management for the McCanns

and

Hamish Campbell was appointed in May 2011 as the SIO for Operation Grange, the review - now re-investigation - into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann being conducted by Scotland Yard.

This article will also examine aspects of the background of Ian Horrocks, the ex-detective, hailed as one of Britain’s foremost investigators, who was sent out to the Algarve by Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in February 2012 and delivered reports to the Sun and SKY NEWS backing the McCanns’ abduction claims and heavily criticising the Portuguese police.

The Jill Dando investigation was run out of Belgravia Police Station, London. So is Operation Grange.

Here are some basic facts about the ill-fated investigation into Jill Dando’s death, led by Hamish Campbell:

A.   It was carried out at the time the McPherson report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence had been published. The Metropolitan Police was disgraced by that report. Scotland Yard’s reputation was in tatters.

B.   Barry Bulsara was wrongly convicted by a jury and served several years  in jail for an offence he didn’t commit.

C.   The only forensic evidence against him was a speck of firearms residue said to have been ‘found’ in his coat pocket.

D.  Cliff Richard, a friend of Jill Dando, was interviewed ‘a number of times’ by the police investigating Dando’s killing.

E.   No-one apart from Barry Bulsara has ever been charged with killing Jill Dando. Her killer, and anybody who may have hired the killer, remain at large.

F.   The main theory, put forward repeatedly by the police themselves and regularly in the mainstream media, is that a Serbian hit-man carried out the attack in revenge for NATO bombing the TV station in Belgrade.

G.  A second theory, with some circumstantial evidence to back it up, is that Dando was murdered by a hit-man on the instructions of career criminal and drugs lord Kenneth Noye.

H.  A third theory, with – as far as I am aware – no evidence to back it up, is that Dando had become aware of a high-level paedophile ring, and was killed by a hit-man acting on behalf of one of the country’s security forces.  


The Dando investigation and the role of Hamish Campbell


In November 1999, a detective named Brian Moore was promoted from the rank of Detective Superintendent (DS) to Detective Chief Superintendent (DCS). At the same time, he left a top secret and very corrupt intelligence unit, CIB3, known as ‘The Untouchables’. The corrupt nature of ‘The Untouchables’ is dealt with at length in a book of the same name by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn, published in late 2004, nearly 10 years ago. Michael Gillard has recently been at the centre of exposes in the national print media about extensive corruption at the heart of the Metropolitan Police Force. He has researched links between very senior officers in the Met, and a number of leading drugs lords.

Brian Moore’s first job in his new role as DCS was to take over the faltering investigation, codenamed ‘Operation Oxborough’, into the murder of Jill Dando. He became the investigation co-ordinator, or ‘Senior Investigating Officer’ (SIO), on 6 December 1999. By this time, Dando had been dead for over 7 months. In this respect, his role matched that of Dr Goncalo Amaral, who headed up and co-ordinated the initial investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, before he was removed from the investigation less than four weeks after he had made the McCanns formal suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine.

Moore appointed Hamish Campbell as his day-to-day chief investigator, or ‘Investigating Officer’ (IO).

Prior to the appointment of Moore and Campbell to run the case, the investigation had found nothing of interest, despite over 7 months on the case. The Met had thousands of registered informants. Not one of them had come up with any information at all about who might have killed Jill Dando and why. A reward of £250,000 for information (about £½ million today)   had produced nothing. Operation Oxborough had interviewed in depth Dando’s family, friends, lovers (of whom there had been many) and colleagues. As Gillard and Flynn correctly observed in their book (p. 428), “The murder investigation was at an impasse”.

All that was to change once Moore and Campbell took over the investigation.

As an aside, there was a significant amount of at least low-level corruption at Belgravia Police Station at the time. Belgravia Police Station is close to Harrods, owned by Al-Fayed. Al-Fayed did favours for Begravia-based police officers. Police officers returned the favours. Indeed, there was already an anti-corruption investigation at that time into the so-called ‘Hamper Squad’, a group of Belgravia-based officers who would arrest and harass anyone, including his own employees, suspected of aiding and abetting his bitter business enemy, Lonrho tycoon ‘Tiny’ Rowland. The greedy officers had a continuous supply of free hampers and huge discounts on Harrods goods. Indeed, one honest officer, Bob Loftus, gave the anti-corruption unit the actual names of police officers who had accepted these bribes. No police officer, however, was ever prosecuted for these criminal offences.

At the time, Al-Fayed owned the now-defunct satirical magazine, Punch. Officers also leaked details of the Dando investigation to Punch, prompting a leak enquiry. 

By March 2000, the team of Moore-&-Campbell were homing in on Barry Bulsara, though quite why they did so is unclear. He was an obsessional and deluded loner, fascinated with himself, and lived in a pig-sty. There was no evidence that he was capable of carrying out a cold-blooded, professional killing, though he did have an interest in guns. Eleven days before the anniversary of Jill Dando’s death, Bulsara’s flat was searched, and a blue Cecil Gee overcoat was seized.

At the same time, mainstream media crime correspondents were briefed that the investigation had identified an obsessive loner as the profile most likely to have committed the crime. This seemed at odds with a killing at point-blank range, apparently with a sawn-off shotgun fitted with a silencer.  

DCI Hamish Campbell appeared on CrimeWatch to reinforce in the public’s mind that it was an obsessive loner they were looking for. He asked for the public’s help in identifying such a person.

It was a full 15 days after the Cecil Gee coat was seized that it was taken to a Mr Robin Keeley of the Forensic Science Service on 2 May 2000. That 15-day delay has never been explained. He then found a single speck of firearm residue inside the left pocket, and said that it was consistent with the type of firearm used to kill Dando. This was to form the crux of the case against Bulsara, even though no other firearm residue or tools for modifying guns were found in his flat. At his trial at the Old Bailey in May 2001, prosecution barrister Orlando Pownall claimed it was ‘compelling evidence of Bulsara’s guilt’.

During the trial, it emerged that during the forensic procedure, Bulsara’s coat was first of all taken to a police studio where it was photographed on a tailor’s dummy. Firearms had previously been photographed at the same studio, raising the possibility of accidental contamination. This extraordinary decision, according to Detective Sergeant Andy Rowell, was made by DCI Hamish Campbell. Campbell later denied this, but since he was the IO, this convinced no-one.

As we now know, Bulsara was convicted. He appealed against conviction, but his first appeal was rejected in July 2002. He appealed again in 2008 - and this time his appeal succeeded.

In April 2010 it emerged that the Ministry of Justice had denied Barry’s claim of £1.4 million compensation.

The decision was made by Jack Straw, Justice Secretary at the time. A High Court application for compensation was also refused, with judges rejecting his claim that the Justice Secretary had ‘unfairly and unlawfully decided he was not innocent enough’. A year later, a further claim was turned down when High Court judges ruled: “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.”

The question obviously arose as to whether the police might have fabricated the case against Bulsara by deliberately placing a speck of firearm residue in his coat pocket. This suggestion has been given added credibility by the involvement of DCS Brian Moore, the SIO in this case, in another case of a man being fitted up - Ira Thomas.

Given that senior Met officers chose Brian Moore to act as the SIO in the case of Jill Dando’s murder, it is instructive to look at his major role in another case where it was accepted that an innocent man had been ‘fitted up’.   



TO BE CONTINUEDTo read the rest of this biography please visit this link: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t9457-a-biography-of-hamish-campbell-the-man-chosen-to-head-operation-grange