Former leader of Cheshire East Council demands inquiry into Cheshire Police

The former leader of Cheshire East Council, Michael Jones, has called for an inquiry into the leadership of Cheshire Police for wasting more than £1m of taxpayers money and more than four years of police time on a failed misconduct investigation.

Following its review of police evidence into allegations that Michael Jones awarded an £84,000 contract to the Corefit children’s charity without following the correct procedures, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided there is no case to answer and announced it will take “no further action”.

Calling the investigation a politically-motivated attack by opponents on Cheshire East Council in collusion and with senior officers at Cheshire police, Michael Jones has written to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Police and Crime Commissioner to request an urgent inquiry and has copied his letter to the Home Secretary.

Despite a formal complaint by the CPS to Cheshire Police about their handling of the case and the length of time taken since starting the investigation in 2016, Michael Jones says senior officers continued to drag their heels, causing significant and unfair damage to his reputation.

Furthermore, he says that Cheshire Police have not learned their lesson and continue to make inaccurate and misleading public statements about the case which are detrimental both to his attempts to bring jobs and investment to Crewe and to Corefit’s work with children in the region.

Michael Jones is currently redeveloping the former Manchester Metropolitan University campus in the Crewe into the Apollo Buckingham Health Sciences Campus. Apollo has begun training nurses and other healthcare professionals to supply thousands of staff to the NHS over the next few years.

Prior to the investigation, Corefit’s work to improve the physical and mental wellbeing of children in the county had reached 3000 children across 56 schools and had been independently verified as having delivered £1.2m in ‘social value’ from its £84k budget. Founder Amanda Morris believes the organisation has been unofficially ‘blacklisted’ by Cheshire East Council during the investigation.

Michael Jones: “It saddens me greatly that so much time and money has been wasted on this spurious investigation by Cheshire Police and it is no surprise that the CPS has agreed that neither I or Amanda Weston at Corefit have a case to answer.

“Regrettably, the same weak and incompetent leadership remains in place at Cheshire Police, and at Cheshire East Council, despite the many fine people who work for both organisations.

“I am greatly concerned that others in Cheshire are at risk of a similarly vindictive investigation and for that reason I have decided to call for an urgent inquiry into the conduct and aggressive behaviour of the Police. It is not a step I take lightly - I have been a great supporter of the Police throughout my career and enjoy excellent relations with the force in Crewe, employing several ex-officers at the Apollo campus.

“During my time as Leader of Cheshire East Council my key focus was to improve its effectiveness and value for money. I delivered two years of budget surpluses with no council tax increase, improved services including no NEETS, and brought in billions of pounds of investment. Unfortunately, while that was good for the people of Cheshire, I believe it embarrassed some of my colleagues by comparison with their own poor performance.”

Amanda Weston: I am relieved at the CPS decision that I have no case to answer and hopeful that Cheshire East Council and others in the area can now judge Corefit purely on its performance. It's a real tragedy that Corefit has spent so long in limbo during this fruitless investigation and particularly now while there is mounting evidence that school closures and isolation from friends during the Coronavirus pandemic is doing so much damage to children’s social and educational development.”