The first of two police officers to face disciplinary hearings over the failure to properly investigate Shana Grice’s complaints she was being stalked by the man who would go on to murder her has been found guilty of gross misconduct.
PC Mills, who has now resigned, was accused of failing to adequately investigate a complaint Shana made on July 9, 2016 after Michael Lane let himself into her house with a stolen key and entered her bedroom.
PC Mills interviewed him after he was arrested, but failed to ask him about the many other incidents of stalking and harassment on his file because he failed to review the case notes.
This was despite having been trained on stalking and harassment interviews just a day beforehand.
Sussex Police laywer Louise Ravenscroft told the disciplinary panel PC Mills had admitted giving Lane the “benefit of the doubt”.
The interview lasted just 12 minutes.
Responding to the panel’s decision, the family’s lawyer, Andy Petherbridge of Hudgell Solicitors said: “It is clearly the right decision. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change anything for Shana and is too little, too late.”
Shana’s family declined to make a statement.
Another officer, PC Trevor Godfrey is accused of concluding Shana’s complaints were dishonest and warning her she was wasting police time after failing to investigate her complaints properly. His hearing was originally scheduled for last Tuesday but has now been postponed to a date yet to be fixed.
Sussex Police have not released first names for either of the officers.
A third unnamed officer faces internal misconduct action.
Shana Grice, 19, reported Michael Lane to police for stalking five times in 2016 but instead of stopping him, they instead fined her for wasting police time after he showed them photos of them together on his phone.
Lane, who had briefly dated Shana when they worked together at Brighton Fire Alarms, went on to slit her throat at her home in Portslade and attempt to burn her body as it lay on her bed.
It later emerged that 13 other women had reported him to police for stalking.
PC Godfrey faces two charges. The first is that on 25 March 2016, he failed to adequately investigate allegations of harassment and stalking, including allowing an opportunity for the victim Ms Grice to respond to comments made by Mr Lane in police interview.
He is accused of concluding that Ms Grice was dishonest and failing to treat her as a victim, instead warning her about wasting police time.
The second charge relates to the same day, when he is accuse of failing to comply with Sussex Police policies regarding domestic abuse, resulting in Shana not being treated as a victim of domestic abuse.
PC Mills, is firstly accused of failing to adequately investigate Shana’s allegations of harassment and stalking which she made on 9 July 2016, and failing to review all available evidence.
Then between 13 and 15 July, he is said to have failed to respond to another report Shana made on 12 July, not contacting her or updating her about the incident.
Are we to believe these officers went about their investigations unsupervised? A supervisor (Sgt and above) would HAVE to authorise the actions taken by these poor patsies.
My disgust at this – and the men responsible being allowed to retire – is total. Here we are in 2019 and this is still happening despite all “the lessons” learned. Not just one case but thousands of cases with women dead at the hands of their tormentors and the police have done nothing, not even, it clearly seems, understanding or caring enough to do their jobs.
I wonder if he has lost any sleep over this? – fining her for wasting police time? – incompetent, absolute useless cretin… RIP Shana
I had a stalker a few years ago, and the police treated it as a joke, even refusing to take a statement until months later, after a letter or two from my local MP, and still nothing was done.
In addition to everything else she did, that horrible, evil woman paid people to follow me and could easily have paid them to beat me up or worse, while the police just laughed about it.
No wonder the public have no faith in these goons.
What good are they if they no longer protect people from criminals? Why do they even exist? They (and the courts) prefer to penalise the victims of crime than make any attempt to catch those that represent a danger to us all.
Sussex Police PSD completely scapegoated PC Mills in their misconduct hearing yesterday. PC Mills said in reference to Shana Grice “all previous incidents have been dealt with” referring to her previous reports of harassment and abuse, and this is what Sussex Police tell victims of domestic abuse routinely, and yet the PSD pretends that this amounts to gross misconduct! PSD pretends that an investigating officer would have been expected to review previous incidents yet this goes against how Sussex Police themselves handle reports of domestic abuse by ignoring previous reports and routinely telling victims “all previous incidents have been dealt with” even when no police action was taken in response to previous incidents.
Sussex Police are cowards and liars and their mishandling of domestic abuse cases is systemic. Sussex Police PSD is not fit for purpose and is unable to hold Sussex Police to account. It is dishonest by Sussex Police PSD to have found no mitigating factors contributing to the conduct of PC Mills when other officers to this day behave exactly as PC Mills behaved when he allowed Shana Grice to be stalked with no expectation of consequences for her abusive stalker.