Quote:
Originally Posted by thenry
Did you ask/push for answers as to why that happened and if anyone would be held accountable, taken out of a job that cares for the public. Pee'ing off on holiday is beyond belief.
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Occasionally Police officers are allowed to go on holiday you know.
What's likely to have happened is the reporting officer, who I assume is the one that didn't turn up, will have included in the case the dates he/she was unavailable. The prosecuter will have received the file, ignored the part with unavailabiluty and scheduled a court date regardless. They might even have scheduled a date and never bothered to cite the witness regardless of leave periods.
The RO will then be off on holiday unaware they are due in court and when the case is called it get binned due to lack of essential witnesses (it's rarer now to get a postponement than a few years back)
That's what happens in Scotland anyway, England should be pretty much the same.
Of course the RO could have just not bothered in which case they'll probably be answering some very uncomfortable questions from professional standards right now.
Anyway in this case it's tragic but the Police are caught in the middle. They have an apparently credible complaint about a male taking pictures of children and have to follow it up. After it was found the pictures were innocent all the proclamations of his innocence wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference to some who had him as a target the minute the camera came out.