Roy Clark, Hamish Campbell, Madeleine McCann, and the death of Lee Balkwell – corrupt connections?

by **Tony Bennett** 06.07.15 10:17

Roy Clark, Hamish Campbell, Madeleine McCann, and the death of Lee Balkwell – corrupt connections?

Yesterday, 5 July, Sunday Times Home Affairs and Crime Correspondent Tom Harper, with Jonathan Clarke, penned an article about Roy Clark, the former boss of the police watchdog body, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

It was headed “Police watchdog investigator ‘in Lawrence cover-up’.” The ‘police watchdog investigator’ was Roy Clark, the current head of Criminal Investigations at the Inland Revenue and Customs.

For some relevant background on the career of Roy Clark, please click on this thread, post 2 (Part Two), https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t9457-a-biography-of-hamish-campbell-the-man-chosen-to-head-operation-grange#241336

...where I link him to Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, the man who botched the Jill Dando murder enquiry and who also, in 2011, was the man became the boss of Operation Grange’s chief investigator, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood. To say that former police officer Roy Clark’s meteoric rise to the very top has been ‘controversial’ would, I suggest, be an understatement.

So what is he accused of this time?

The new accusations against Roy Clark

According to the Sunday Times report, “The IPCC is examining one of its former investigators over the alleged failure to disclose suspected police corruption in the original Stephen Lawrence murder enquiry”.

It continues with quite a shocking allegation: “A review by an IPCC official has concluded that ‘there is material to suggest that Roy Clark provided misleading information to the 1998 Macpherson enquiry into police failings in the [Stephen Lawrence] case’.”

The article notes that Roy Clark, a former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, became the very first Director of Investigations for the IPCC when it was set up in 2004.

So, from the get-go, the ineffective IPCC had at its very core a former police officer with a highly controversial, chequered career to date.

Did Roy Clark supply misleading information to Macpherson?

Clark, says the Sunday Times article, may have “failed to hand over key information to Macpherson".

Stephen Lawrence’s father, Neville Lawrence, claimed that senior Met Police Officers, right up to an including Met Police Commissioner Lord Stevens, failed to hand over crucial information to Macpherson.

Mark Ellison Q.C. reviewed the Stephen Lawrence case last year and reported that intelligence about a corrupt Met Police officer connected to the case had been withheld.

Both Lord Stevens and Roy Clark stand accused of writing a letter full of misleading information to Macpherson on 21 September 1998.

If this was ‘wilful’, both Stevens and Clark could face criminal charges.

The connection between Roy Clark and the Madeleine McCann case

So, the connection between Roy Clark and the Madeleine McCann case (if you refer to my article, above) is clear. Roy Clark, Brian Moore and Hamish Campbell are all highly controversial figures, and worked closely with each other, Roy Clark becoming head of the IPCC in 2004, and Hamish Campbell being put in charge of Operation Grange from 2011 to 2013.

The connection between Roy Clark and the Lee Balkwell case

So what is the connection, if any, between Roy Clark and the case of the death of Lee Balkwell?

On 30 January 2012, the IPCC produced one of its most damning reports ever; they found senior Essex Police Officers guilty of 26 separate instances of misconduct. They upheld 13 separate misconduct charges against Detective Chief Superintendent Graeme Bull, who was in charge of the Les Balkwell investigation 2002-3, and a further five against Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Coxall, who was in charge from 2003-6.

The IPCC says that Essex Police’s investigations into the case were ‘seriously flawed’ investigation. Les Balkwell, Lee’s father, has always maintained that the whole investigation was corrupt.

The role of Steve Reynolds in the Lee Balkwell case

The Essex Police officer who supervised these initial investigations, and was the line manager to both Bull and Coxall, was the former Head of Essex Crime, Steve Reynolds.

Reynolds was, and no doubt still is, a prominent Freemason, belonging to one of Southend-on-Sea’s many Masonic Lodges. Lodge membership is high in Essex Police, and new officers were constantly being asked to enrol in the Masons.

One Essex Police officer who persistently refused to join the Freemasons was one John Moran.

Back in the 1990s, a dispute arose between a Detective Constable called James Tuckerman and a Detective Sergeant said by Moran to be ‘close to Reynolds’. Moran’s view of this dispute was that all Tuckerman’s actions were correct and that the entire blame for the dispute was on the Detective Sergeant in question. Moran took the view that Tuckerman was an honest, straightforward officer and that the Detective Sergeant was not.

It came to the point where Moran was asked one day by Reynolds to make a formal statement about the dispute. He asked Moran to make a statement condemning Tuckerman and supporting the Detective Sergeant. Moran says he was asked repeatedly by Reynolds to make a statement and refused every time.

On the last occasion he was asked, Reynolds is said by Moran to have said: “Well, you won’t get your promotion, then”. Moran still refused to make a statement against Tuckerman.

A more serious situation for Moran arose on 23 October 2003, when he was arrested on suspicion of police corruption. The background to this was that for the past two years he had been working on the murder of Dean Boshell in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in 2001. He had submitted intelligence reports from members of the community who implicated two men, Damon Alvin and Ricky Percival, as the killers of Boshell. In charge of this investigation were Bull and Reynolds, who were at the same time managing the ‘seriously flawed’ investigation into the death of Lee Balkwell.

Suffice it to say for the moment - and I hope to be able to tell the full awful story one day - that Moran had remained a thoroughly honest police officer who was not in the least corrupt, as subsequent events have proved. Despite being placed on bail for a whole year, he was eventually told there was no evidence against him. The suggestion is that Bull and Reynolds conspired to arrest him because he had been filing awkward intelligence reports on the Dean Boshell case. The Dean Boshell case has been written up in detail in Bernard O’Mahoney’s book: ‘Essex Boys - The New Generation’, in which he fully agrees that Moran was honest, and treated appallingly by Bull and Reynolds.

The connection between Roy Clark and Steve Reynolds

So how does Steve Reynolds connect with Roy Clark?

Simple.

The controversial Roy Clark was appointed the Director of Investigations by the IPCC from its foundation on 1 April 2004.

Just 16 months later, and just after the 7/7 bombings which killed 52 and the subsequent murder by police of Jean Charles de Menezes, Clark appointed the controversial Steve Reynolds as one of the IPCC’s Senior Investigators, and promptly ordered him to work on the controversial ‘Stockwell 1’ and ‘Stockwell 2’ reports on the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Maybe the connections between Roy Clark, Hamish Campbell, the Madeleine McCann case and the Lee Balkwell case are all just coincidences.

Or maybe they are not.

ETA:

Since my post above, 'Lord Laffin' has tweeted that Roy Clark was also involved in the third, 'secret' review in the Daniel Morgan case. For those not aware of the Daniel Morgan case, Morgan, a private investigator, was murdered in 1987 after threatening to expose senior level corruption in the Met Police; 28 years later, no-one has been brought to justice for his murder, although three people were charged for his murder four years ago. The prosecution of those three was halted at the request of Alison Saunders, the high-ranking CPS officer who, inter alia...

* refused 24 years ago to hold a second Hillsborough inquest, delaying the anguish of the families from then until now

* visited Praia da Luz on the Madeleine McCann case in early 2013 with a colleague - no-one knows why

* became the Director of Public Prosecutions in December 2013, and

* recently refused to prosecute Lord Greville Janner for allged gross multiple crimes against children, a decision which has now been overturned

by whatsupdoc 06.07.15 11:02

Thanks for posting all the above info, Tony. The higher up you go , the worse the corruption, it seems. I'm glad some truth is finally coming to light.

I've just retweeted vvv's tweet.

by willowthewisp 06.07.15 11:30

Hi Tony
Thank you for all your work on this site.
It really is truly amazing about the involvement and behaviour of these so called Police officers and the way the cases collapsed within court cases?
I think that a public inquiry should be held into the "Institutional cover up by successive Government's"failure to uphold the Law by it's own Police force?
Remember HRH and Diana's butler, how HRH remembered a conversation after the butler gave evidence at court, Case Dismissed Ma Lord? Ka Ching, tax payer will pay?
Lord steven's and the Diana investigation,Stephen Lawrence murder,Kennath Noye,police officer secret payments at quite public house caught on camera by under cover officers following another case, but took pictures when Noye and Police protection officer for stephens best friend who was lead witness at the eventual trail both seen in the public house, collecting an envelope?
Who gave these people the right to jeopardise any foreseeable case of evidence collected that would be involved in Crown Prosecutions, especially now as the head of the DPP has been involved in the Madeleine McCann case, with her some what dubious past record, Hillsborough,Janner, Charles De Menaghie, how long could the list be?
Has any one got the urge to grow some ***locks and unleash the barrel of **it they have covered up, I doubt it!!!?

by lj 06.07.15 19:06

Thank you Tony.

How shocking, what is a "normal" person to do when faced with such interconnected corruption.

by **Tony Bennett** 06.07.15 21:30

lj wrote:Thank you Tony.

How shocking, what is a "normal" person to do when faced with such interconnected corruption.

Quick reminder of this article, also by Tom Harper, posted back in October last year, documenting the scale of police corruption:

++++++++++++++++++++++++

New investigation after '2,000 police officers' are implicated in corruption

Roy Clark, Hamish Campbell, Madeleine McCann, and the death of Lee Balkwell – corrupt connections? 2Q==

Exclusive: Independent investigation reveals thousands of officers are suspected to be crooked

Tom Harper

Friday 17 October 2014

Police corruption is to be investigated by a powerful committee of MPs amid fears of widespread impropriety – as The Independent reveals that thousands of officers are suspected to be crooked.

The Home Affairs Select Committee will launch an inquiry next month into the police’s relationship with organised crime, focusing on the infiltration of forces by criminal networks. The inquiry, which will allow MPs to hear from witnesses under the protection of parliamentary privilege, follows a series of scandals including the inquiries relating to Stephen Lawrence, Daniel Morgan, phone-hacking and Plebgate. It comes as The Independent can reveal for the first time the Government’s official estimate of how many members of police staff were suspected of being compromised by dealings with criminals.

An analysis of intelligence by Home Office researchers found between 0.5 and 1 per cent of the 200,000 police officers and civilian employees in England and Wales in 2003 were “potentially corrupt”, and involved in leaking information to criminals, stealing property during raids, fabricating evidence, helping villains to escape prosecution and “using their power to obtain money or sexual favours from the public”.

However, the previously unnoticed report said the problem at the time was “far wider” and made clear the 2,000 figure did not include officers suspected of “criminality and misconduct”, which included dealing and using drugs ranging from steroids to crack cocaine, fraud, domestic violence and “sexist, racist and homophobic behaviour”.

The report suggested that police who had committed crimes should be dealt with behind closed doors (Ian Forsyth /Getty Images). The report cited raids where suspects were apparently expecting police, had no incriminating evidence and had “already got the kettle on when the police arrive”. One investigator is quoted as saying: “A good villain can’t operate without having a bent officer...it’s impossible.” The report said the suspected criminality was not limited to junior officers and found “examples of higher-ranking officers implicated in corruption or other unethical behaviour”. The Home Office report also recommended that, in some cases, police who had committed crimes should be dealt with behind closed doors, rather than mount prosecutions in open court, with “alternative outcomes” such as “disciplinary procedures” and “disruption tactics” being “less damaging to the morale of the organisation”.

Another theme running through the 2003 paper was the fear of “bad publicity and criticism” that resulted from publicising investigations into police corruption. “Media strategies accompanying investigations might be used to minimise negative publicity,” the report suggests.

Critics said this “kid-gloves” approach to the police from successive Labour governments was one of the reasons why the Home Secretary, Theresa May, is having to deal with a series of historical scandals, such as Hillsborough, the Daniel Morgan murder and corruption of the Stephen Lawrence investigation. Conservative MP Lorraine Fullbrook, a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “Labour’s kid-gloves treatment of the police bred a lack of accountability which ultimately let down the public. There has been a loss of confidence in the police as a result, which is quite dangerous. Theresa is trying to tackle these historic issues to restore the public’s trust.”

There was “endemic corruption” in the Metropolitan Police, according to a secret Scotland Yard report from 2002 (Harry Engels/Getty Images). Earlier this year, The Independent revealed the existence of a secret Scotland Yard report from 2002, code-named Operation Tiberius, which concluded there was “endemic corruption” in the Metropolitan Police. The file found organised crime networks in north-east London were able to infiltrate the Met “at will” to frustrate the criminal justice system. Following pressure from the Home Affairs Select Committee, Scotland Yard later admitted it held an astonishing 260 crates of documents on police criminality relating to Operation Tiberius – yet none of the rogue detectives appears to have been successfully prosecuted.

The separate 2003 Home Office report into police corruption was unearthed by The Independent after being buried in exhibits submitted to the Leveson inquiry. The research found up to 1 per cent of the 200,000 police officers were “potentially corrupt”, but warned: “There is likely to be a far wider range of unethical behaviour within the police service that is not picked up.” In one force, 15 per cent of all corrupt activity related to the disclosure of information to criminals, and 11 per cent to the “inappropriate association with criminals”.

It said Scotland Yard had a particular problem with the corruption of detectives by informants from the underworld. Prosecuting police officers is “particularly difficult”, according to the report. One investigator was quoted as saying: “Unlike a criminal, a corrupt officer knows exactly what can be deployed against him … they know how to cover their tracks.” The report also found a systemic problem with officers sharing a “solidarity …that stands in the way of colleagues reporting on one another where corruption is evident”. Policing minister Mike Penning said: “The public expect the police to act with honesty and integrity and it is right that the full force of criminal law is available to punish and deter acts of corruption by police officers. This Government has introduced a range of measures to tackle misconduct.”

Police corruption: previous reports

Operation Othona 1994-98 Top-secret intelligence-gathering exercise on police criminality later inexplicably shredded by the Met.

Macpherson inquiry 1998 Judicial probe into Stephen Lawrence murder, concluded Met was “institutionally racist”.

Operation Tiberius 2002 Huge intelligence-gathering exercise found Met suffered “endemic corruption” and was being infiltrated “at will” by organised crime gangs.

Hillsborough Independent Panel 2012 Review of 1989 disaster when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium. Concluded police had wrongly smeared fans as drunk and violent, and found 116 police statements had been altered to mask police failings.

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel 2013 Investigating claims a private investigator was murdered in 1987 as he was about to blow the whistle on police corruption. Yet to report.

Ellison report 2014 Review of Stephen Lawrence murder concluded Met had placed an undercover police officer as a “spy in the Lawrence camp”, and found senior officers withheld intelligence of police corruption from the Macpherson inquiry

by willowthewisp 07.07.15 11:52

Hi Tony, thanks for posting the updated article and the named operations, all I can say is.
What a Cesspit of corruption of our society these elected MP's and Lords have led the UK electorate down with regards to endemic corruption of institutions being uncovered lately!!!?
No wonder there was no result from Leveson inquiry as it just shown the UK up for what it had failed to do over Generations, which was to "Protection of Society" not the "Establishment", Cart before the horse?
Take a long look at a dishonest person's and the shenanigans of the Murdoch clan at Leveson and House of Commons committees they have been summoned to appear before?
Dodgy Dave is up to his neck in all this deluge of uncovered filth that his conservative Ministers have tried to suppress from the public, to protect the "State" not the public who pay for the state in the first place!
So in effect we pay them to suppress us we must be Masochists, where's the whip, oh Gideon has borrowed it for miss whiplash at his next appointment, don't forget the Talch, Gideon?
Do not worry I put in place 12 Billion pounds of cuts to the poorest in society and anyone with a house worth one million pounds are to be protected, that will show those plebs for voting for us, that we are all in this together?