Nottinghamshire Police has launched a fresh investigation to uncover all officers who may have illegitimately viewed footage relating to the Nottingham attacks . An inquiry continues into the failings in the run-up to the killings by Valdo Calocane in the early hours of June 13, 2023, of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates. The inquiry is also examining failings in terms of the response to those killings, and Calocane’s three attempted murders, with the unauthorised access of footage relating to the case having emerged as a key issue. It has previously been confirmed that Calocane’s record on the police system had been accessed by 179 police officers immediately after the Nottingham attacks, despite many not being involved with the case. Only one former officer to date, former Special Constable Ilsading Skenderaj, has been found to have viewed footage that he should not have done and that only came to light after he chose to refer himself to Nottinghamshire Police’s Professional Standards Directorate (PSD). The Nottingham Inquiry heard on Tuesday (April 14) that Skenderaj watched footage whilst sat at home in August 2023 including footage from inside an ambulance and footage showing Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar being placed into body bags. The officer was subject to an accelerated misconduct hearing in December 2023 that was heard behind closed doors and which resulted in him being barred from working as a police officer. Nottinghamshire Live understands that the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) will investigate Nottinghamshire Police’s failure to communicate details with the bereaved families about the misconduct proceedings against Skenderaj until after they had concluded. It comes as it was confirmed at the Nottingham Inquiry’s hearing on Tuesday that Nottinghamshire Police has decided to launch a fresh probe into any staff who illegitimately looked at footage relating to the Nottingham attacks. The audit is set to be carried out by the company which manages Nottinghamshire Police’s digital evidence management system, partly so the audit is independent, but also because of the company’s technical expertise. All the new inquiries have only come about after Emma Webber, Barnaby Webber’s mum, submitted a complaint to Nottinghamshire Police’s PSD last month following revelations in the Nottingham Inquiry’s opening weeks. The person heading up the PSD, Superintendent Kathryn Craner, was the key witness at the Nottingham Inquiry’s Tuesday hearing and she was questioned by Mr Alex Ivory, counsel to the inquiry, about the new audit. Mr Ivory said: “Would you accept the delay in audit is unacceptable?” “Yes, I believe the audit should have been done or certainly considered in 2023,” Superintendent Craner responded, given police knew in September 2023 about the conduct of Skenderaj. “Because the inevitable result is that until this audit is completed, and any requisite disciplinary action taken, there could be officers or police staff who viewed this footage illegitimately, still serving, couldn’t there?”, Mr Ivory asked. “Yes”, Superintendent Craner responded. Mrs Webber has confirmed following Superintendent Craner’s evidence that she will again write to the acting Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police Mr Cooper to ensure the detail and scope of the new audit is made available to her and the other bereaved families before it takes place. She said: “We cannot, and will not, allow any further audits or investigations to take place in any part of our case without ensuring cast-iron proof in advance, at the outset, that they will serve the appropriate purpose and transparency.” Emails were shown to the inquiry’s hearing on Tuesday in which several officers from the PSD discussed concerns in the days after the Nottingham attacks that if they did a full audit of who was looking at material without authorisation, it would be “massive.” One senior officer claimed there would be “no time” to do such a thorough audit and guidance was instead reiterated to all officers. This guidance said that officers who had looked at distressing footage, rightly or wrongly, should speak to Nottinghamshire Police’s wellbeing services if they had been affected by it. Emma Webber told Nottinghamshire Live on this point: “My god, how insulting is that? That just sums up the toxicity of that failed police force, doesn’t it?” Minutes from a meeting the day after the Nottingham attacks in fact showed a senior officer discussing the possibility of an “amnesty” for officers who had looked at certain files relating to the Nottingham attacks without permission. Mrs Webber said that Nottinghamshire Police’s actions in regards to unauthorised access so far had been “wholly, utterly inadequate” and that the actions of Skenderaj in particular were “abhorrent.” She said: “I’m going to take every opportunity that I need to to get every stone unturned. “The one self-referral of the ex-Special Constable has resulted in him choosing to resign, not dismissed as we were told, but that was a self-referral. “The audit is going to show more. It was clearly referenced very early on, the concerns about the numbers of officers who were inquisitive about what had happened on this major tragedy in their city. “I don’t expect that to be the only one, but I promise you now that the audit will only be considered complete when we know all of the nuts and bolts of how it’s done. “I don’t think there’s any agency or institution that hasn’t failed, not only to do their basic jobs properly, but they’re all failing with their staff to conduct themselves properly. Where’s the humanity in all of this?” Nottinghamshire Police and the IOPC were contacted for further comment.
Nottinghamshire Police to probe officers who looked at CCTV of city killings without permission
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