Humberside Chief Constable intends to stay in post

The Chief Constable of Humberside police is defiantly remaining in his post after the Home Secretary today called on the Humberside Police Authority to suspend him.

David Blunkett said today that he "required" Chief Constable David Westwood's suspension after a report into the constabulary's conduct prior to the Soham murders found there had been "very serious failings" in child protection procedures.

The author of the damning report, Sir Michael Bichard concluded: "There were very serious failings in the senior management of Humberside Police and that the current Chief Constable Mr Westwood must take personal as well as corporate responsibility for not identifying and dealing with these earlier, once he became Chief Constable in 1999."

Mr Blunkett accepted these findings and earlier today asked the police authority to suspend its chief constable under provisions of the Police Reform Act 2002.

However, Mr Westwood said that that the authority has not yet suspended him, and he would not offer his resignation.

He said: "I am aware that the Home Secretary has announced that he has asked the Police Authority to suspend me. They have not done so. Until they decide what their position will be I remain Chief Constable."

Mr Westwood said that lessons needed to be learned and that the people of Humberside must be confident that they have an "effective and committed police force to protect their freedoms".

He said he wanted to stay on to achieve these goals.

"I believe I have the support and confidence of my force, my Police Authority, and the people of Humberside," he added.

On the report – which unearthed a lack of effective guidance and training; widespread ignorance of how records were created; and confusion about what was meant by weeding, reviewing and deletion – Mr Westwood said that few other forces have "had their past weaknesses exposed so publicly and in such devastating circumstances".

He added: "I should, however, like to repeat the sincere apologies for the failures of the Humberside force, that I made when I gave evidence to the Inquiry.

"Sir Michael and his team have listened to what we had to say and have come to their conclusions. Some of them make deeply uncomfortable reading.

"Inevitably there has been professional and private pain for us. But there is something about a process like this that brings out the best in organisations and people."

For its part, the government said that it would take forward: the introduction of the first National Police Intelligence Computer system; the nationwide introduction of the interim police local exchange; a statutory code of practice on police information handling by the end of this year to enable all 43 forces to deal with intelligence information in the same way.

The Home Secretary said, while Cambridgeshire police received criticisms, "much graver concerns" had been raised about the senior management of Humberside.

Mr Blunkett said: "It is Sir Michael's view that the 'final responsibility for these serious failures rests with Chief Constable David Westwood'. It is difficult to disagree with this.

"The role of any Chief Constable has to be one in which the public have confidence. In the face of serious criticism, it is my responsibility as Home Secretary to question whether people in Humberside can continue to have that confidence. Mindful of our duty of care, I asked Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Keith Povey, to discuss Sir Michael's findings with the Chief Constable yesterday."

He went on to call on the police authority to "suspend Mr Westwood as Chief Constable forthwith".

(gmcg)