PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has offered to meet the family of murdered show jumper Katie Simpson to discuss changes to policy and practices following the flawed investigation into her 2020 death.
The 21-year-old died six days after she was fatally assaulted by former jockey Jonathan Creswell, who killed himself after the first day of his April trial for murder and rape.
Chief Constable Boutcher said: “I acknowledge that there were shortcomings in the initial stages of the investigation. I am sorry for this and have offered to meet the family to discuss our response to these issues.”
Mr Boutcher said a Police Ombudsman’s investigation had recommended action be taken against several officers “as well as policy changes in recognition of the need to ensure robust investigation from the outset in such circumstances”.
“This gives us, and should give the public, confidence that our practices now are more victim-focused. We cannot comment on the outcomes of the misconduct proceedings that have now taken place as they are in law closed proceedings. Lessons have been learnt,” he said.
A senior police detective, later seriously injured in a dissident republican gun attack, played a key role in the decision not to initially investigate as a possible murder the death of Ms Simpson.
Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell was the head of the major investigation team tasked with following up initial enquiries after the fatally injured 21-year-old was admitted to Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry in August, 2020.
Ms Simpson died six days after being admitted to hospital. Three days later, a post mortem was carried out, with the pathologist concluding it was a “possible hanging” though this was based largely on the word of her killer, Jonathan Creswell.
The major investigation team then concluded the death was not suspicious and any further investigation into a potential murder was shut down, this despite warnings to police even before her death. It is now known four separate reports were made to police appealing for them to investigate first an assault and then murder following her death.
Medical staff at the hospital also raised red flags as she had injures consistent with being beaten and signs of sexual assault. Police were also aware from an early stage prior to Ms Simpson’s death that Creswell served a six month prison sentence for strangling and threatening a former girlfriend, Abi Lyle, who is representing Ireland in the Paris Olympics.
A separate team based in Armagh pushed for months for a murder investigation to be opened but faced opposition from within the PSNI.
Over many months, people close to Ms Simpson continued to urge police to treat the death as a possible murder. A full investigation finally began in January the following year and just weeks later 34-year-old Creswell was charged with murder and rape.
He took his own life after the first day of his trial in April. In June, three women received suspended sentences after pleading guilty to helping cover up the initial assault. One, Hayley Robb, cleaned the house where the assault took place, while two others, Jill Robinson and Rose de Montmorency-Wright, also helped by washing clothes.
In a statement to BBC’s Spotlight, Mr Boutcher said that following an investigation by the Police Ombudsman, misconduct proceedings were under way against some officers but told the programme Det Ch Insp Caldwell was not one of them.
Det Ch Insp Caldwell, the chief constable said, “almost gave his life in public service and he and his family have the PSNI’s full support while his recovery continues”. The detective was shot and seriously injured in a 2023 gun attack near Beragh, Co Tyrone, and was later awarded the King’s Police Medal.
He added that the challenge of immediately identifying the circumstances of a death where a perpetrator as devious and manipulative as Creswell was involved should not be underestimated.
Alliance MLA Nuala McAllister, a Policing Board member, told Spotlight: “I am aware that there was an individual officer who did a lot of work and actually brought it forward to his superior to say: ‘This isn’t right here.’
“He met a lot of resistance, not from his superior but from within the team around the district in which Katie lived and where the death actually occurred,” she said.
“There was a police team in the PSNI who just didn’t want to know. I’ve been informed that it was DCI John Caldwell who led that team.”
Ms McAllister said: “It has been alleged to me that it was DCI John Caldwell himself who put up the most resistance and acted in the way, I have been told, that was not befitting of a senior ranking officer.
“Why fight it? Why argue against it? Where was the harm in investigating it?”
Creswell, a former jockey, met Ms Simpson when he began working at a stables near her home in Tynan, Co Armagh. He began to groom her from the age of 10. He also began a relationship with her sister, Christina, and they later had two children.
All three, along with the children, lived in a house in Lettershandoney, Co Derry at the time of the fatal assault, which was motivated in part by jealousy after he discovered she was in a relationship with a young man.
Spotlight obtained extracts of the actual call between Creswell and the 999 call handler after the assault in the morning of August 3, 2020. Creswell put Ms Simpson in a car and began driving her to hospital despite being told to wait for an ambulance.
The call handler told him to stop the car and carry out CPR, which he pretended to do, counting out numbers. However, it is now known at the same time he unlocked her phone before turning it on to airplane mode so it could not be tracked.
Ms Simpson did not have the phone by the time she arrived at the hospital, a fact family members questioned.
