Complaints against officers

[Fedster + 1,307]

Force carried out lengthy investigation involving Interpol.

 

Christopher Henry

 

A "fantasist" who used the name of a French waxworks museum as part of an "extraordinary web of deceit" in a bid to avoid a speeding ticket has been jailed for 12 months.

Christopher Henry also doctored documents and created a second fake identity of a man living in the most northern part of Britain to try to avoid prosecution.

Sentencing the 52-year-old at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Andrew Barnett described him as a "fantasist" akin to Walter Mitty.

Hampshire Police said Henry, of Church Road, Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, was caught speeding by a mobile camera on the A343 Newbury Road in Hurstbourne Tarrant in February 2016 while driving his ex-wife's Land Rover Freelander.

But in an attempt to avoid the £100 fine and three points on his driving licence, he intercepted the fines letter and first claimed a French man, named after the Musee Grevin in Paris, had been driving before then claiming that a man called George Harris from the Isle of Lewis had been at the wheel.

A force spokesman said: "When officers could find no record of either man, they made contact with Interpol who found that the name of the French man was the same as that of a wax museum in Paris, and his address was a nearby hotel.

"Inquiries with the hotel showed that a Mr Musee had never stayed or worked there.

"They then spoke to the post mistress on the Isle of Lewis, who had lived on the island her whole life, and she knew nothing of a Mr Harris, Mr Musee or Christopher Henry."

The spokesman said that investigations revealed fingerprints found on the paperwork were Henry's and not his ex-wife's and that the French man's name had also been given to Avon and Somerset Police when an Audi TT registered to Henry was caught speeding in August later the same year.

He added: "Henry, who consistently denied having driven or had any access to the Freelander, was then caught out when officers got voice recordings of him calling the AA out on two separate occasions when he broke down in the Freelander.

"During the trial the court was given evidence showing how Henry had also provided false dates of sale to the DVLA, set up a false email address and doctored emails from insurers, all in an effort to cover his tracks."

PC Richard Jewell said: "In his sentencing, the judge has sent a clear message to those that might consider such deceitful actions. He would have got points and a fine but now he has a criminal record and time in prison."

Henry did not respond to the original speeding notice and was prosecuted for failing to provide information.

He was given six points and fined £800, which was raised when he appealed to £1,600, with a three-month disqualification from driving.

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[Radman + 2,163]

This is an utterly crazy story!

[SD + 687]

Hows that proportionate?

[Sceptre + 2,701]

45 minutes ago, SD said:

Hows that proportionate?

Because perverting the course of justice is a serious offence?

Edited May 12, 2018 by Sceptre

[SD + 687]

2 minutes ago, Sceptre said:

Because perverting the course of justice is a serious offence?

But that wasn’t known till afterwards. 

[Sceptre + 2,701]

6 minutes ago, SD said:

But that wasn’t known till afterwards. 

Once he gives them two different names for people for neither of whom can any proof be found that they even exist there's probably an inkling that's what was going on. They have absolutely gone to the nth degree to prove it though, getting voice recordings from the AA and analysing documents for fingerprints, but that's good tenacious investigating - I'd rather they did that than only pursue honest people and let the dishonest slip through the net because that's in the too hard box. 

[SD + 687]

15 minutes ago, Sceptre said:

Once he gives them two different names for people for neither of whom can any proof be found that they even exist there's probably an inkling that's what was going on. They have absolutely gone to the nth degree to prove it though, getting voice recordings from the AA and analysing documents for fingerprints, but that's good tenacious investigating - I'd rather they did that than only pursue honest people and let the dishonest slip through the net because that's in the too hard box. 

I’d rather they spent their time investigation more serious driving offences than involving Interpol to check addresses for what was a minor driving offence.

[CountyCop + 178]

39 minutes ago, SD said:

I’d rather they spent their time investigation more serious driving offences than involving Interpol to check addresses for what was a minor driving offence.

I would have to agree with you here SD.

I would argue that yes there is a point holding people to account, however I don’t know any officer in a uniform or core infestagtive role who could commit time like this to a speeding ticket.

Proportionality and reasonable lines of enquiry here seemed to have been stretched.

[Sceptre + 2,701]

33 minutes ago, SD said:

I’d rather they spent their time investigation more serious driving offences than involving Interpol to check addresses for what was a minor driving offence.

Who do you think they brought in to investigate this, Cagney and Lacey or a cop on the speed camera unit who'd only be dealing with other speed camera offences anyway? If they don't make some effort to investigate apparent lies then the whole system loses its rigour and we might as well not bother. 

Besides which I think both you and Countycop miss the point with your comments about proportionality here. If you're investigating a speeding ticket then yes, taking fingerprints off pieces of paper is disproportionate, but if you're at a point in your enquiries where three counts of perverting the course of justice look possible then that's a rather different kettle of fish. 

[CountyCop + 178]

10 minutes ago, Sceptre said:

Who do you think they brought in to investigate this, Cagney and Lacey or a cop on the speed camera unit who'd only be dealing with other speed camera offences anyway? If they don't make some effort to investigate apparent lies then the whole system loses its rigour and we might as well not bother. 

Besides which I think both you and Countycop miss the point with your comments about proportionality here. If you're investigating a speeding ticket then yes, taking fingerprints off pieces of paper is disproportionate, but if you're at a point in your enquiries where three counts of perverting the course of justice look possible then that's a rather different kettle of fish. 

Does your force have cops on the speed camera unit? Mine does not, they are staffed by civvies. So yes I will question who investigated this crime. From my perspective and experience it is highly unlikely a uniformed officer would be doing this. Trying to get CID to look at this would be a interesting experience as well.

Im not discounting the merits of investigating this a peverting the course of justice. Indeed one could argue that this type of offending is a preceptor for serious organised crime. I don’t think anyone is missing the point here.

However the reality is in most circumstances certainly where I have worked these enquiries would be unrealistic. I would be hard pushed to a support an officer in these enquiries when they have 10 other offences to investigate. Some which do fall into the the tick box catergory of if you don’t deal with you will be in trouble.

[David + 4,981]

Yeah, stuff it, why bother trying to investigate any sort of crime? Might just as well disband and let them get on with it, hey.

Disproportionate or not (and I don't think it was) isn't there a principle at stake here, and good on the investigation to finally bring the culprit to book. 

[CountyCop + 178]

21 minutes ago, David said:

Yeah, stuff it, why bother trying to investigate any sort of crime? Might just as well disband and let them get on with it, hey.

Disproportionate or not (and I don't think it was) isn't there a principle at stake here, and good on the investigation to finally bring the culprit to book. 

Really David I think your being a tad petulant here, I don't disagree with your sentiment, however I think your view of proportionality is unrealistic. I would love for every crime that is reported to be recorded and investigated thoroughly, the reality is that this is just not possible.

From my own experience every crime that is recorded where I work needs a supervisors investigation plan, part of this does include proportionality and reasonable lines of enquiry to be carried out, which does have a internal force framework. Traffic offending unfortunately where I work is not given a high priority so in this instance I could not see this having the same outcome in my force. A lot of crime that we used to investigate does not get followed up now and that is many due to investigative costs and lack of numbers, cuts do indeed have consequences. 

Unfortunately some crimes are more equal than others, such as our domestics, safeguarding and whatever flavour of the month issues we have, get more of a silver service than our SAC Drug and traffic offending at the minute. This coupled with a huge workload for our front-line staff means that yes lines do have to be drawn somewhere and the consequence being that probable more crimes than I would like to think do not get thoroughly investigated.

The principe you mention in my experience was sacrificed a good 3-4 years ago in terms of quality investigation. Again this could be subject to where people work and what type of resourcing each force has in place.

[David + 4,981]

On the other hand CountyCop, could it be argued that if people thought/knew they weren't going to get away with a crime, fewer people would be tempted to even try?

[Zulu 22 + 4,571]

Who ever investigated this case does not really matter. It was a job well done and Christopher Henry will have time to think about is deceitful and perverting actions. I agree with David on this, otherwise we just give the smart Alec's of this world free reign to do as they please, how they please, when they please.

[IrateShrike + 1,846]

 I can't see how it is ever disproportionate to fully investigate an offence against the administration of justice.