Two Sussex Police officers are to due to face misconduct hearings starting next week over the failure to investigate properly Shana Grice’s complaints that she was being stalked by the man who went on to murder her.
PC Trevor Godfrey, who is now retired, is accused of concluding Miss Grice’s complaints were dishonest and warning her that she was wasting police time after failing to investigate properly.
PC Jon Mills, who has now resigned from the force, is accused of failing to investigate adequately complaints that she made later.
The pair are both due to appear at Sussex Police Headquarters in Lewes for their respective one-day misconduct hearings. PC Mills is scheduled to appear on Friday while PC Godfrey’s hearing was originally listed for Tuesday but has now been postponed to a date yet to be fixed.
Sussex Police have not released first names for either officer but they have been identified by Brighton and Hove News to protect any police officer with the same surname from misplaced suspicion.
PC Godfrey retired in December 2017 and PC Mills resigned, with effect from today (Thursday 2 May). A third officer faces internal misconduct action.
Shana Grice, 19, reported Michael Lane to police for stalking five times in 2016 but, instead of stopping him, they fined her for wasting police time after he showed them photos of them together on his phone.
Lane, who had briefly dated Miss Grice when they worked together at Brighton Fire Alarms, went on to slit her throat at her home in Portslade and tried to burn her body as it lay on her bed.
It later emerged that 13 other women had reported him to police for stalking.
PC Godfrey faces two charges. The first is that on Friday 25 March 2016, he failed to adequately investigate allegations of harassment and stalking, including allowing an opportunity for the victim, Miss Grice, to respond to comments made by Lane in police interview.
He is accused of concluding that Miss Grice was dishonest and failing to treat her as a victim, instead warning her about wasting police time.
The second charge relates to the same day, when he is accused of failing to comply with Sussex Police policies regarding domestic abuse, resulting in Miss Grice not being treated as a victim of domestic abuse.
PC Mills is accused of failing adequately to investigate Miss Grice’s allegations of harassment and stalking which she made on Saturday 9 July 2016, and failing to review all available evidence.
Then from Wednesday 13 July to Friday 15 July, he is said to have failed to respond to another report that Miss Grice had made on Tuesday 12 July, not contacting her nor updating her about the incident.
