Here is yet another example of apparently appalling police incompetence, this time resulting in a murder taking place despite clear warning signals which were repeatedly ignored. As the Telegraph reports, Tania Moore was terrorised by her former boyfriend Mark Duyche after she broke off their engagagment. The list of attacks and threats was horrifying:

'Miss Moore's car was vandalised and a male friend told his house would be burned down. A text message to her read: "My girlfriend wants to see your head on a platter, like the beef on the table tonight". On June 2, with a £2,000 loan from Helen Smith, he paid his associates to attack her.

'The assault left Miss Moore in hospital, but it was not just the physical injuries taking their toll.Once, with her nerves shattered, Miss Moore went to stay in London. She began receiving messages about what shops she was in and the clothes she had bought.

'"Someone must have been shadowing her," said Mrs Moore. "She was petrified." On New Year's Eve 2003, in a packed pub, Dyche threatened to kill her. Two months later - four weeks before her death - he attacked her, shaping his fingers like a gun as he left. Both incidents were reported to police.'

To no avail. According to her mother, the police failed fully to investigate the attack on her daughter, failed to investigate her complaints of harrassment and failed even to open a bundle of threatening text messages she handed over to them. The result was that Ms Moore was murdered.

Now, far too late, Derbyshire police say they are going through their failure with 'brutal honesty'. It will be salutary to see how high up this brutal honesty penetrates and whether anyone responsible for this shambles of a police service is actually held accountable and pays a price. And when will the police service overall start asking itself with brutal honesty why such lethal incompetence has become its dominant professional motif?

Posted by melanie at May 13, 2005