She had been heavily criticised for her response to Valdo Calocane’s crimes
Former Chief Constable Kate Meynell pictured as she leaves Mary Ward House in London, after giving evidence at the Nottingham Inquiry(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
Nottinghamshire Police’s former chief constable will soon take up a new job – heading up the unit that reviews huge cases like Valdo Calocane’s city killings.
Kate Meynell was in charge of the force from December 2022 to March 17 this year, with it being announced in October last year that she was retiring from the role due to a cancer diagnosis.
Her witness statement to the ongoing Nottingham Inquiry has revealed that she will be taking up a new role as head of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit’s regional review unit on April 6.
EMSOU is a specialist unit staffed by officers and staff from the East Midlands’ five police forces which is tasked with tackling the most serious, organised and violent crime across the region.
Its regional review unit team conducts reviews of major inquiries, critical incidents and other identified investigations or themes.
The unit had actually been asked to review Nottinghamshire Police’s investigation into paranoid schizophrenic Calocane’s horrific crimes on June 13, 2023.
Nottinghamshire Police Chief Constable Kate Meynell said she “acknowledges that the force has work to do”(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Nottingham Post)
Former chief constable Meynell had told the inquiry that EMSOU’s review findings contained “nothing that raises any concerns for me regarding the overall quality of the investigation”.
However, the quality of this investigation has been questioned during the ongoing judge-led inquiry into the failings that led to Calocane’s fatal stabbings of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates and his following van attack on Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller.
Former chief constable Meynell, who is set to take over EMSOU’s review team, has been heavily criticised for her response to Calocane’s crimes.
She recently admitted at the Nottingham Inquiry that her force’s failure to apprehend wanted man Calocane before his killing was “unacceptable” and described the complaint to the press regulator over Nottinghamshire Live’s coverage of a “non-reportable” briefing – and the fact that no one told the families about it – as a mistake.
The EMSOU unit that she will be joining was labelled as being “inadequate” at tackling serious and organised crime in 2023.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found that the collection of seconded officers were too focused on traditional serious crime like drugs and firearms at the cost of human trafficking and organised immigration crime investigations.
Officers and staff from EMSOU told HMICFRS inspectors that they suffered from a lack of experience, skills, intelligence and effective coordination.
A spokesperson for EMSOU said: “We look forward to welcoming Kate Meynell as the new Head of Regional Review in April.
“This EMSOU unit is responsible for reviewing live, concluded and unsolved homicides and other serious incidents and offences across the East Midlands and beyond.
“Kate was an extremely strong candidate and appointed, after interview, due to her wealth of experience, through years of leading homicide and other major crime investigations, including as the Head of Major Crime in the region and subsequently as a Chief Officer in three of our five forces.”