The PSNI failed to deal properly with intelligence that said there was a threat to a man’s life days before he was murdered, the Police Ombudsman has said.
Deputy Chief Constable of the PSNI apologised to the family of Glenn Quinn for how the threat assessment was handled, and said that intelligence was not an exact science.
Mr Quinn, 47, was found beaten to death at his home in Ashleigh Park, Carrickfergus, on January 4, 2020.
The Ombudsman released a statement on Sunday which said intelligence was received three days before Mr Quinn’s death that stated his name and home address and that he was to be shot dead at the property.
This led to police failing to identify him as a target, said Mrs Anderson.
The duty inspector who initially received the intelligence noted that it was from an anonymous source, that the name and address it mentioned did not match information on police systems, and that there had been many similar reports from the same area.
The now-retired officer assessed that it did not represent a real and immediate threat to life and advised that instead of tasking out-of-hours resources to further research the intelligence, it should be revisited in the morning.
Mrs Anderson said visiting the address was a reasonable line of enquiry that police ought to have pursued.
In failing to do so it is my view that the officers involved failed to follow relevant PSNI procedures and comply with the Article 2 right to life requirements as reflected in that policy.
The Police Ombudsman recommended that a duty inspector should be disciplined for this failing, and said she would have made a similar recommendation about the other duty inspector if they had not retired.
But the PSNI decided that the serving officer had no case to answer for misconduct and should not be disciplined, and instead should receive additional training, the Ombudsman said.
Mrs Anderson expressed disappointment that her disciplinary recommendation had not been accepted given the significance of the failings identified but welcomed training introduced last month for police making ‘life and death’ decisions.
Deputy Chief Constable Todd apologised to the family of Mr Quinn on behalf of the organisation.
The Police Service accepts the learning highlighted by the Police Ombudsman during her investigation and we have now implemented recommendations to ensure that incidents of a similar nature do not occur again.
Formal training for officers required to make critical life and death decisions while responding to death threats has now been introduced.
An appeal for information about Mr Quinn’s murder has been renewed; detectives in the major investigation team can be contacted on 101 or charity Crimestoppers can be contacted on 0800 555 111.
