A BRITISH police officer has quit his job and another has been disciplined after botching an investigation into the man who went on to murder eight-year-old Perth girl Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia-Shu.
Police from Surrey in southern England originally investigated Dante Wyndham Arthurs over allegations he caused bodily harm to a 12-year-old girl in Bookham in 2001.
However police let him leave Britain despite being a suspect in the case.
The Times newspaper said one police officer had resigned and another had faced a disciplinary inquiry as a result of botching the investigation.
Arthurs was suspected of grabbing the 12-year-old girl from behind, putting his hands over her nose and mouth before she managed to struggle free.
He was questioned by British police and his house searched, but an identification parade was repeatedly postponed amid objections from Arthurs’ lawyer, The Times said.
By the time police were ready to go ahead with the identification parade, Arthurs had already left Britain for Australia.
A Surrey police spokeswoman told the newspaper that a review of identification parade procedures was carried out once details of the Shu case emerged in Australia.
“An officer who was overseeing the identification suite at the time has since resigned from the force and another officer was given words of advice as a result of a disciplinary inquiry.
“The identity of the offender was never established as there was insufficient evidence.
“There was no evidence in Arthurs’ character or background to suggest that he would offend, or reoffend.”
Arthurs was last month convicted after pleading guilty to murdering Sofia in the toilet of a Perth shopping centre in 2006.
WA Police have said they were not told about the allegations made against Arthurs in England until after he was arrested over Sofia’s murder.
Sofia’s family also believe their daughter may still be alive if Arthurs had been put on a sex offenders’ register over a 2003 charge in Australia of indecent dealing with another Perth girl.
Source – http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22513621-2,00.html
And the police mishandling continues with another West Australian Case that should be highlighted
By Erin Tennant
Police believe the wrong man was convicted over the Peter Falconio murder, a new book claims.
True crime author Robin Bowles alleges that a Northern Territory officer made the extraordinary claim during the trial of Bradley John Murdoch.
Murdoch was convicted in December 2005 of murdering English backpacker Falconio and kidnapping his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
Bowles claims a police officer waiting to give evidence in the Darwin Supreme Court trial told her during a court adjournment: “We know he wasn’t the shooter. But he’s going down for it”.
Melbourne-based Bowles, who published a book about the Murdoch trial in 2005 titled Dead Centre, said the officer’s statement was witnessed by a court employee.
“I was talking to him saying, how can you charge this guy [Murdoch] with his stuff, if you don’t even know Falconio has been shot?” Bowles told ninemsn.
“It’s all very well for you to say he’s been shot at the scene and by a .22 bullet…But we don’t even know that there was a gun involved.
“All we have is Joanne Lees saying she heard a bang . . . subsequently she says she saw a silver pistol pointed at her, but police have never been able to find this pistol.
“It’s a huge leap of faith to say that Falconio’s been shot.”
Bowles devoted a 10,000-word chapter to the infamous murder case in her new book, Rough Justice: Unanswered Questions from the Australian Courts.
She adds in her book that Murdoch says he plans to “name names” linked with corruption in the course of his trial, after Murdoch spent almost two years trawling through a police file of the case using a computer in his jail cell.
“I do know he has established a website through a third party…and it’s his plan to put material on that website,” said Bowles.
“How he’s going to do it from an Alice Springs jail I don’t know.”