Met Police murder detectives ‘face wall of silence’

Murder detectives in London say the “heartbreak” of unsolved cases is being made worse by a “wall of silence”.

The Met has solved nearly 90% of homicide cases in the past decade but Det Ch Insp Noel McHugh says fears about “snitching” are a challenge.

He said those who share information with police “are not a grass, they are a public champion.”

The aunt of Bjorn Brown, whose death is unsolved, said the wait for justice had prolonged her pain.

Commissioner Cressida Dick has previously said detectives were operating in a “very challenging” environment and were met with a “wall of silence” in some cases.

The Met classes homicides as “detected” when a suspect is charged or following an inquest into the death of a suspect who would have been charged.

Homicides in London
About 12% of cases since 2008 remain unsolved as of June 2019
Det Ch Insp McHugh said there were a higher number of unsolved homicides in 2018 and 2017 than other recent years because “crimes don’t necessarily get detected in the year they happen”.

He said other challenges facing the homicide teams included extracting data from multiple mobile phones.

“Every mobile phone is effectively a computer. There is a massive amount of work for investigators to work through,” Mr McHugh said.

“It might take two or three days to totally understand what a device was doing on that particular day.

“Recently, we had an investigation where we recovered 50 phones – it is enormous.”

Det Ch Insp McHugh said he was keen to “dismantle the snitching culture”.

“It is absolutely heartbreaking for the officers and the families, especially when there are people out there in the know, holding back information and hiding behind a wall of silence,” he said.

“They are not a snitch, they are not a grass, they are a public champion.”
The Met said it had a “robust and comprehensive” review process for all homicide investigations.

If a case was unsolved after 28 days, a homicide investigation would be independently reviewed by specialist officers from the Met’s Serious Crime Review Group.

Source: (BBC News)