A Pakistani diplomat allegedly made a threat to kill someone, a Nigerian could
have faced charges of actual bodily harm and one from Cameroon allegedly
neglected a young person – a member of his family. When, following an independent review, SCD did finally take over,
Reid was arrested within days.. Staff from foreign embassies in Britain have escaped prosecution despite
allegedly committing a range of offences including human trafficking, sexual
assault, threats to kill and drinking and driving.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said that a number of diplomats were
responsible for “serious offences” which could carry a prison sentence of
one year or more, but had escaped charges because of diplomatic immunity. If the borough had handed over the case, it would have
weakened its department’s grasp on rape investigation The request was
refused.

At the time, two
departments at the Yard, ‘the boroughs’ and Specialist Crime, were fighting
over who should have rape investigation, and the prestige and resources that
went with it. Home Office performance indicators made no distinction between trivial
cases, such as a formal warning on the street for possession of cannabis
(about an hour’s work) and a conviction for a serious offence such as rape. Rape investigations tend to be long and complex, involving hundreds of
officer hours and with conviction rates around 7% (against 35% for all
crime) if all you wanted was to keep your boss and the Home Office happy, it
made sense to put resources into easier cases.

Finally, the borough Sapphire unit eventually asked if the Specialist Crime
Directorate at Scotland Yard could take over the case. She set-out the linked-cases, how he fitted
the description and lived close to the crime scenes, and that he had
previously been acquitted of indecent assault She appears to have been
ignored.

A civilian crime analyst subsequently suggested that DNA should be
taken from Reid and two other suspects. It wasn’t the case passed to another
unit.

Senior officers at that time faced a dilemma. The then Government’s priority
was to “narrow the justice gap” between offences committed and convictions. A woman patrol officer in this case flagged-up Reid
as a suspect to the detectives.