Sir Richard Henriques agrees with me too

Further to my post of 10 November (Insufficient Evidence - my 100th post I realise) and having read a bit more about the report into the Met's Operation Midland, I can't resist pointing out that I said in an earlier post (January Man, 23 September) "The complainant (I refuse to use the term "victim" in any of these situations unless there is proof the events actually happened)..."

Sir Richard Henriques probably didn't read my blog and had probably already drafted much of his report. But his report says the senior officer concerned was wrong to call everyone who said they had been abused a "victim" and that they should be referred to as "complainants" instead. Further, the police should no longer announce that they "believe" every accusation. I should think so: innocent until proven guilty appears to live to fight another day.

However, although I have been extremely critical of the Detective Superintendent who announced that what the malicious fantasist known as "Nick" was alleging was "credible and true", it bothers me that only he and one other officer, a Deputy Assistant Commissioner who was Gold Commander for Midland and the separate investigation into Leon Brittain, are reported to be facing disciplinary action. Indeed I'm not sure Det Supt Kenny Macdonald should be facing such action at all. He should have been given "feedback in the moment" (as it was called in my last company) by his seniors that he'd said something inappropriate and a correction issued at the time.

So I don't understand why the performance of the more senior officers who escaped criticism isn't also being considered. After all, the two in the dock are middle ranking officers, almost foot soldiers in this context. The clue is in the title: "Deputy Assistant Commissioner". (As an aside, it was a standing joke in our house that my wife was the boss, I was the deputy boss, the older son assistant to the boss and the younger son the assistant to the deputy boss. Companies I worked in latterly thought that anyone called "deputy" or "assistant" wasn't doing anything necessary and needed to be given a proper job or moved on  - but to have BOTH in the title - wow, there's obviously too many layers of management!)

 Now I'm not normally one who thinks that the person at the top should know everything that's going on: that's not possible. Only Select Committees would be daft enough to think that Rupert Murdoch should have known everything that was going on in one of his newspapers in one country of a multi-national multi-modal media empire, for example.

But Assistant Commissioner Patricia Gallen had overall responsibility for Operation Midland. What did she actually do other than receive briefings and, in turn, brief the Commissioner (Hogan-Howe)? I realise the Met has thousands of investigations under way at any one time and oodles of day to day pressures. But it's not credible that neither Gallen nor Hogan-Howe missed the furore about "credible and true" at the time even if they weren't briefed. To not realise that something major is going wrong in a high profile investigation - or worse realise and not act - beggars belief.

Most failures are ultimately failures of management. These failures certainly are. Unfortunately Henriques has fallen into classic blame culture and aimed both barrels at the poor isolated middle manager who was probably being pressured to get results.

My post title - referring to my suggestion that there was insufficient evidence that the justice system was operating satisfactorily in this area - was too cautious. If you make a mistake, your seniors won't point it out, they'll just let you take the rap. So there is clear evidence that the Met is dysfunctional.