PSNI need to show they’ve learned lessons of Katie Simpson case – Mary Kelly

We all watch so many cop dramas on the box that we probably fancy ourselves to have some detective skills. But you surely didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to ask a few questions about the horrific killing of the 21-year-old showjumper Katie Simpson in 2020.

Ten years earlier, Jonathan Creswell, the man who would eventually be charged with her murder, was jailed for six months after pleading guilty to assaulting his then partner, Abi Lyle, also a showjumper.

Ms Lyle gave a powerful interview to the BBC about the torture and beatings she had endured during their nine-month relationship.

Yet when Katie Simpson was found dying, in suspicious circumstances, the PSNI immediately swallowed Creswell’s claims that the young woman had tried to take her own life. And they continued to accept his version of events for months despite the concerns of hospital staff, who believed her injuries were not consistent with his story, and her disbelieving family.

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A subsequent post-mortem examination noted injuries to her limbs were “consistent to being struck with a rod-type implement”.

Would his own record of violence against women not have raised a few suspicions?

The Police Ombudsman launched an investigation into the handling of the case in 2021 and subsequently submitted a file relating to six officers to the PSNI’s professional standards department last year.

A year on and the ombudsman is still awaiting the outcome of its recommendations to the PSNI, which says the file it had received was “extensive” and it would take time to consider fully.

There’s no longer a murder trial now that Creswell has died so there should be a swift response to the ombudsman’s report.

Would his own record of violence against women not have raised a few suspicions?

Two years ago, after new laws on coercive control came into force, the PSNI reported that they were receiving an average of over 100 reports a month of domestic abuse with controlling and coercive behaviours.

If we’ve to have confidence in the police service, they need to show they’ve learned the lessons of the Katie Simpson case.

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There’s a well-known saying that if you’re in a hole, stop digging. Somebody needs to tell Doug Beattie.

His protege for the North Down Westminster seat, Colonel Tim Collins, must have seemed like the ultimate candidate of unionist dreams. Ex-army, Gulf war veteran, OBE, articulate, intelligent… the cigar-waving officer whose rousing speech in Iraq earned plaudits. But then it all went wrong when he gave an ill-judged interview to the News Letter, in which he came across as pompous, ill-informed and arrogant – a Captain Mainwaring let loose from Warmington-on-Sea.

In his famous eve-of-battle speech, he said the allies were there to “liberate, not conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own.” President George W Bush was so impressed he hung a framed copy in the Oval Office. I doubt if his latest thoughts will be considered so inspirational.

In short, Collins railed against the “pro-nationalist” Alliance Party, suggested people wouldn’t vote for a united Ireland because they’d lose their disability living allowance (abolished in 2017), and the health service was being damaged by immigrants. Apparently he hasn’t noticed the large numbers of brown and black faces that are keeping hospitals afloat.

Then Doug took to the airwaves to defend him, with a prolonged mea culpa in which he said that while his language was “clumsy”, he’d let Collins down by not giving him enough political advice about the party’s policies. And you may well laugh at the idea of Doug dispensing advice to anyone.

He then went on to admit that the incumbent MP, Stephen Farry was “better qualified”, but North Down voters are apparently tired of that sort of thing and want a change. We’ll see.