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Cowardly Cops who stood by as young mother was killed are fined only FIVE days' pay in latest scandal to rock Britain's ailing police 'service'


PC Theresa Cottingham, left, and PC Charlotte Hall ...................Colette Lynch was stabbed on her doorstep

Two 'police officers' who did nothing to protect a woman from a violent ex-boyfriend who went on to murder her were fined just five days' pay at a 'disciplinary' panel. Terrified Colette Lynch, 24, had called police to her home after Percy Wright smashed a window and threatened to cut her throat leaving her genuinely scared for her life. But 'police officers' Charlotte Hall, 30, and Theresa Cottingham, 38, dismissed the incident as criminal damage rather than violence, and took no action.

Two days later Wright, 35, stabbed Collete Lynch to death on her doorstep in Rugby, Warwickshire in a sickening murder which could have been and should have been prevented by the police. But after an 'independent' disciplinary panel decided not to sack the two women, Miss Lynch's family spoke of their outrage. Her mother Helen Lynch, 60, said: "They have sent out a message to other officers that they can turn a blind eye to domestic violence. We hoped and prayed that the panel would announce loud and clear that Warwickshire Police has no place for officers who condone domestic violence."


Collete's mother spoke out against the prejudicial 'judgement'

Her daughter Patricia said the fines could "hardly be called a sanction" and were no real deterrent to other officers. The hearing, in a Rugby hotel, was the first time that a police disciplinary panel had met in public. It was ordered by the toothless Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Miss Lynch's family walked out in disgust after the three-man panel announced its decision after 45 minutes of 'deliberations' favourable to the two grossly incompetent 'police officers'. The family now plan to sue Warwickshire's Chief Constable on grounds of abuse of duty of care but case law in the civil courts may prevent them from getting a single penny in compensation.

The two officers were accused of a catalogue of errors including failing to follow their force's domestic violence policy, failing to properly record, investigate and manage the incident and failing to take positive action to protect Miss Lynch. Their actions were both cowardly and incompetent and in a sane world they should have been drummed out of Warwickshire police.

The panel was told that Miss Lynch called police on 1 February 2005, after Wright's first attack. He had already left the scene but the officers made no attempt to find him. Nor did they take as evidence the stick he used to smash the window and the 'police' simply allowed to roam free at will to later carry out the murder.

In fact, PC Hall wrote just 11 words in her pocketbook about the incident, while PC Cottingham summed it up in nine.Two days later police were called again and found Miss Lynch, who had three young children, dying from stab wounds to her heart and lung. Wright, 35, was later convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and sent to a mental hospital.

The panel, chaired by David Crompton, Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, ruled that the officers were both guilty of failing to perform their duties "diligently and conscientiously". They took too narrow a view of the incident and should have asked "quick, simple and fundamental questions". The panel said: "These basic failures contributed to the lack of detail in their notebooks and indicated a blinkered and inflexible approach." But despite having powers to sack them, the panel decided impose only lame fines.

It also said there was no suggestion that the officers' failings had led to Miss Lynch's death which is both illogical and astonishing given the fact that police inaction led to Miss Lynch's murder. And Sarah Ricca, the Lynch family solicitor, said it was "fiction" to claim there was no connection. She said: "The only reason they were before this panel was because Colette Lynch died two days later".

Warwickshire Police said it "fully accepts" the panel's findings and has already reviewed its domestic abuse policy. The two cowardly and incompetent 'police officers' refused to comment on this latest case of the police being protected by a corrupt Establishment, no matter what they have done.

It is now perfectly clear that British 'police' are a law unto themselves and there is no proper oversight, genuine accountability or disciplinary action available to the public. Coming on the back of the execution of Jean Charles De Menezes and Harry Stanley, it is clear that police are a protected species and what is more clear is that the long-suffering British public can have no faith or trust in 'police officers' who can and do act as they see fit, knowing only too well that corrupt New Labour quangos will defend them to the hilt.

THE TIME FOR FUNDAMENTAL SOCIO-POLITICAL CHANGE HAS COME!