Should We Just Trust the Police?

• In Fife Police we have recently seen that Former Officer Richard Munro was sentenced to 5 years for falsifying statements in a murder case. Based on these findings two individuals were released on appeal after 10 years in prison for murder.
• Only last year last year former Fife Police Chief Constable Norma Graham was found to have driven careless driving. A civilian in the other car had a number of injuries. A Fife police spokesman at the time described the road conditions as “treacherous”  and said they found small patches out of ice on the road, about 330ft from the crash site, and initially claimed they could “cumulatively” have caused Graham to lose control. But crash investigator Alistair Bain, of Lothian and Borders Police, told the court he thought that was highly unlikely. He added: “It is my opinion that the cause was an unknown driver error by the driver of the Audi.”
• In 2007 the senior officers in charge of the investigation into Colin Marr’s death effectively took no action. In 2010 they were found (after their retirement) to be Grossly Negligent and failed to carry out the most basic procedures.
• In February 2008, in the case of Colin Marr, Fife Police (CSI John Myles) were told to reopen the investigaion and again took no action.
• In October 2008, the investigation into Colin Marr was re-opened after intervention of MP Willie Rennie. Again the most basic aspects of Police procedures for a suspicious death case were ignored and the Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Inspector Graham Seath, manipulated the findings of his investigations and passed on a false perspective of his findings to experts such as pathologists. The purpose as stated in his own statement was to help experts form an opinion into the cause of death with regards Colin. This was a biased distorted report that at best was likely to lead to a suicide verdict.
• An example of this bias was in DI Seath’s summary reports where he states that the ONLY negative comments received about the suspect in Colin’s case was that she was High Maintenance and Huffy. What was actually aware but not commented upon were the following;-“Candice known to hit Colin” , “Candice got stuck in”, “hot headed”, “temper”, “we all thought Colin was afraid of her” ,“she threatened violence” “Candice being violent to Colin” “stormy relationship” “aggressive” “she cut Colin’s eye” “she would fly off the handle, shouting at Colin” “volatile” “attacked Colin” “if she behaves now as when I knew her, she could do anything”. “Colin had cut on eye” “They regularly fell out” “Candice would get into fights at nightclubs” “She was a bit unbalanced and had a bit of a temper.” “When we went out she got in a few fights with other girls at the nightclubs” “Candice was on another planet and often in the red zone“ “Candice is more than capable of violence and would not admit doing it.”  “Colin stated that if she found out about affairs she would kill him.” “Candice is a person who could flip and I have seen that personally.”
• Despite that Colin died a violent death, none of the avbove was presented at the FAI and DI Seathg he found nothing untoward about her. Strathclyde found that there was evidence that Colin had been assaulted previously by Candice.
• CSI Garry MacEwan of Fife Police knows of this manipulation, among other things, of the investigation and a letter from Fife Police has responded by suggesting that the manipulating of events was for internal purposes only (what diference does this make?) and refused to take action.
• Stephen House has also been made aware of this and by passing this on to PIRC has probably ensured that this officer will never be disciplined for these actions.

About the author

Margaret and Stuart Graham are the mother and step father of Colin Marr. This site is an attempt to develop a community to allow victims of our Justice sytem to work together rather than be isolated voices.

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