Investigation of the death of Jay Abatan: Tribunal of DS Ladley 20 December 2004

Panel: Met Commander Cressida Dick (chair), Met Commander Steve Allen, Kent ACC Alan Thomas

DS Alan Ladley accompanied by Association Friend DCS Martin Bellfield

Presenting officer DCC Nigel Smith

Also present: FLO Amanda Stroud, IPCC representative Patricia Napier, Michael and Kathy Abatan, Tanya Haynes

Character Witness: CS Cox, Head of Sussex CID

Commander Dick introduced herself and panel and listed the five charges. She asked DCC Smith a number of qualifying questions in relation to the events of the night of the incident with regard to command and control. She asked how much training DS Ladley had received as SIO of a serious incident, to which the answer was that specific training was not available at that time and that DS Ladley had no murder investigation training prior to the incident. His role at the time was related to drug squad and Source management. DCC Smith told her that There was an on call SIO rota which was from 6pm on Mondays and was shared between HQCID and Divisional Crime Management - it was ad hoc at the time and on the night of the incident DS Ladley was on call from 6pm. The Blue Book which was the Sussex operations policy manual in 1999 was intended for guidance only and new policies were being written but not issued until January 2000. DCC Smith said that Comm Dick asked what the differences were so that the panel could judge how far DS Ladley had strayed from existing guidelines. There was an adjournment so that DCC Smith could find and make available to the court the 1999 Blue Book and new policy document.

Five charges and sanctions:

1 Not conscientious and diligent in your duties as a senior investigating officer in the course of investigating the death of J Abatan in that you continued to deny that there were any problems with the investigation until the Essex Review was published, producing a briefing note to DS Jeremy Paine stating that the matter had been reviewed on a number of occasions when this was not in fact the case. FINE 13 DAYS PAY

2 That you were not conscientious and diligent in your duties in that as the senior investigating officer into the said investigation you made inappropriate use of message forms to record actions and failed to ensure that actions were endorsed with the result of enquiries. REPRIMAND

3 That you were not conscientious and diligent in your duties in that you failed to ensure the efficient management, allocation and receipt of enquiries. FINE 13 DAYS PAY.

4 That you were not conscientious and diligent in your duties in that you as the senior investigating officer into the said investigation you failed to ensure completion of the action to trace a woman with a riding crop identified on the 24 January 1999 by Sergeant Johnson, this action not being raised until 25 April 2000, some 15 months after the event. REPRIMAND

5 That you were not conscientious and diligent in your duties in that you failed to properly and effectively supervise DI Young. REPRIMAND