FOI 3405 Suspended Or Discontinued Murder Investigations

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 18 November 2011. Please find below the response to your request:

1a.  Between 2005 and 2010, how many murder investigations in the West Mercia constabulary were suspended or discontinued as a consequence of the retirement of the senior investigating officer?

1b.  Between 2005 and 2010, how many murder investigations in the West Mercia constabulary which were suspended or discontinued as a consequence of the retirement of the senior investigating officer were never further investigated?

1c.  Between 2005 and 2010, how many murder investigations in the constabulary which were suspended or discontinued as a consequence of the retirement of the senior investigating officer were subsequently passed to a 'cold case' investigation unit?

1d.  Between 2005 and 2010, how many murder investigations in the West Mercia constabulary which were suspended or discontinued as a consequence of the retirement of the senior investigating officer and subsequently passed to a 'cold case' investigation unit were never further investigated?

2a.  Between 2005 and 2010, how many rape investigations in the West Mercia constabulary were suspended or discontinued as a consequence of the retirement of the senior investigating officer?

2b.  Between 2005 and 2010, how many rape investigations in the West Mercia constabulary which were suspended or discontinued as a consequence of the retirement of the senior investigating officer were never further investigated?

Reply 

The answer to questions 1a and 2a of your request is nil. Therefore the response to the remainder of your questions is `not applicable`

Please be advised that whenever a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) retires from West Mercia Police, another SIO is immediately appointed to take on any existing workload with a suitable handover period prior to their retirement.  Therefore there are no cases that fall within the categories above. 

For your information, Any homicide case that is unsolved is regularly reviewed and all undetected rape cases are reviewed within 28 days.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the response provided by our Criminal Investigations Department is as accurate as possible.