London Evening Standard/London
The police watchdog is set to investigate how a force took six days to launch a murder inquiry after John “Goldfinger” Palmer was shot dead.
The body of the notorious British criminal, 64, was discovered by his family at an isolated house in Essex on June 24.
Essex Police initially recorded his death as non-suspicious. However, a post-mortem examination carried out on Tuesday found the cause of death was gunshot wounds to the chest.
Yesterday Essex Police announced it had referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, as one former Flying Squad chief branded the force “utterly incompetent”.
An Essex Police spokeswoman said officers and paramedics who attended the scene initially assessed the death as non-suspicious because they believed the injuries were a result of recent major surgery — thought to be heart surgery.
She said: “The case has been referred to the IPCC so it would be inappropriate to comment further. We now need to catch who is responsible.”
Former Metropolitan Police chief John O’Connor told the Sun: “When someone as notorious as John Palmer is discovered dead on your patch then surely it’s common sense to be absolutely sure of the facts about how he died. But one minute these bunglers were saying it was natural causes then almost a week later it’s suddenly murder. What a joke.
“It’s one of the most terrible mistakes in policing I’ve ever heard of.”
Detectives would be “days behind” in the investigation and may have “completely lost the crime scene”, O’Connor added.
Palmer became infamous after he was cleared of handling proceeds from the £26mn Brink’s-Mat bullion raid at Heathrow airport in 1983. His alleged involvement earned him the nickname Goldfinger.
