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| West Midlands Serious Crime Squad | |
|---|---|
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 1974 |
| Dissolved | 1989 |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction | England, UK |
| Size | 11,203 km2 (4,326 sq mi) |
| Population | 4,822,500 |
| Legal jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Parent agency | West Midlands Police |
The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was a police unit in the English West Midlands which operated from 1974 to 1989. It was disbanded after an investigation into allegations of incompetence and abuse of power on the part of some of the squad's members. Some of this misconduct resulted in wrongful convictions, including the high-profile case of the Birmingham Six. The sister Regional Crime Squad based at Bilston was responsible for the investigation of the Bridgewater Four.[1]
At least 40 convictions failed in the 1980s as a result of likely malpractice, including tampering with evidence. As cases began to regularly collapse in the late 1980s, pressure mounted to investigate the squad. Clare Short raised the issue in Parliament in January 1989. The Birmingham Six's convictions were quashed in 1991. A series of other less high-profile convictions based on the squad's investigations were quashed on appeal, including the cases of George Glen Lewis, Keith Twitchell and, on 17 October 2014, Martin Foran, who had been wrongly convicted in 1978 for four counts of robbery.[2] As of January 2017 a total of 60 appellants have had their convictions quashed. A total of over 100 cases either collapsed or were quashed on appeal.
In August 1989, the squad was shut down by the Chief Constable Geoffrey Dear, and the West Yorkshire Police was asked by the Police Complaints Authority to investigate the squad's activities from 1986 onwards. This meant that the Birmingham Six case was out of scope, as was that of the Bridgewater Four, although there was cross over of staff with the regional squad. The West Yorkshire Police reported in 1994, leading to disciplinary action against seven officers, but recommended against prosecutions for lack of evidence. Ten officers had avoided disciplinary action by leaving or retiring early, while around 100 received advice about police procedures. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Barbara Mills agreed with the report's view and did not attempt to prosecute any officers, and was widely criticised for this decision.