Clare Bernal – The Coroner’s Inquest

“Any mistakes in assessing the danger were not serious”
says Coroner in Stalking Murder inquest.

Comment by Ray DonelanA number of people leaving the Westminster Coroner’s Court on the morning of Thursday 18th January 2007 must have been feeling quite relieved after coroner Dr Paul Knapman defended a catalogue of mistakes on the part of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), on the basis that he was satisfied Clare Bernal’s murder by her stalker Michael Pech could not have been reasonably foreseen bearing in mind the [Police] resources available.

Knapman, well known for his 'bruising' management style over The Marchioness Inquest 20 years ago, has often been criticised for the lack of concern he shows to those who come into contact with him and his court following the loss of loved ones. In his narrative, he did little to comfort the family in their great loss, preferring to protect the police from any criticism and blame for this tragedy and praising them for their 'efficiency' and 'speed of response'. He even sought a commendation for an inexperience probationary officer who was given the stalking case by her senior officer at the local Community Safety Unit (CSU).

In his summing up, the coroner said the police could not have prevented Clare’s murder and any mistakes made in assessing the danger her killer Michael Pech posed were ‘not serious’. He added “That without the benefit of hindsight, I do not believe, in practical terms, this death could have been anticipated.”

Many others leaving court felt angry and believed the inquest had failed to reveal the inadequacies of existing systems and failures on the part of the MPS and the CPS to provide proper protection to a victim of harassment and stalking. They believe that with the use of a little foresight, Clare’s death could have so easily been prevented.
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Knapman’s summary did nothing to help family and friends who firmly believe there was sufficient information available to the police and the CPS at the time of the original arrests for events to have taken a different course and protected Clare from harm. They are left still seeking answers.

Knapman said that the police had made a series of errors in the run-up to the murder, the result of an "obsession" with paper trails and a culture of "ticking boxes". Curiously this was not true in this case. Important forms, designed to feed vital information into police systems had been left untouched. Little additional paperwork had been completed beyond written statements taken at the time of Clare’s first complaint. Not every witness had been interviewed and no notice had been taken of Harvey Nichols own security file on Pech. Knapman declared several times that none of these oversights would have made any difference to the eventual outcome. Why not?

There was no written assessment of the risk Pech posed to Clare. The 22 year old probationary officer, the same age as Clare, took up the case and made her own risk assessment with just one day’s experience in the CSU and lacking any training in, or experience of, domestic violence and stalking.

Was this good enough? In such cases the single most important issue is to provide safety for the victim. Since well structured documentation and procedures exist to identify, assess and manage the risk and were used in most other cases - why not this case?

The facts were there for all to see.

Pech had threatened to kill Clare on several occasions saying “I will kill you if you tell the police” and “If I can’t have you, no one else can.” He had approached colleagues about how he could get hold of a gun and even asked what the term of imprisonment was for murder. It was well known he had been a soldier in the Slovakian army and had worked as an armed guard at the American Embassy in Bratislava before taking up a security post at Harvey Nichols in London.

With this information to hand, how could an unwritten assessment at the time of Pech’s first arrest consider the risk to be low? And did anyone think to re-assess Pech’s state of mind given his changing situation?

After all, he had been arrested for harassment, stalking and threatening to kill, was re-arrested for breaking bail conditions, had talked of suicide, had lost his job - and with that the prospects of future employment. And he had lost the girl he wanted to have control over. With loss of dignity he was publicly humiliated in court and held in prison. Surely this series of events and the time he spent in the tough Belmarsh prison would have done little to reduce the risk he posed to Clare, rather it would have increased it.

Amazingly, on his release from detention the second time around, exactly the same bail terms he had already twice broken were re-imposed. Pech’s late change of plea from not guilty to a plea of guilty for a lesser charge which removed reference to his threat to kill was agreed, allegedly to protect Clare from having to give evidence in front of a man of whom she was still very afraid. It would also result in a non custodial sentence and therefore provide immediate release on bail for pre-sentencing reports.

Knapman let the CPS off the hook even though they had mistakenly charged Michael Pech with a less serious offence than the one recommended, claiming that whilst an administrative mistake had been made, this was the correct charge anyway. Outlining the CPS role in the case, Chris Newell, the Principal Legal Adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions, claimed the decision to bail Pech was correct and dropping the charge of ‘threatening to kill’ was also correct based on the evidence available.

Just what evidence were they looking at? And where was the fully considered risk assessment?

Found guilty as charged of the lesser offence, Pech was then released on conditional bail and instructed to return to court some 4 months later, in September, for sentencing. Why 4 months? Clare would continue to be at risk and was entitled to ‘protection from further harm’ offered by the Hate Crime Unit, particularly in the light of Pech’s earlier breaches of bail conditions. But bail did not restrict Pech from travel and a week later he returned to Slovakia where his mother and former wife lived. Knapman stated that as there was no contact for nearly 4 months. That is easily explained since Pech remained there for over 3 months, returning to Britain in mid August in time for his court appearance on 31st August, with a Luger pistol and ammunition in his hand luggage.

Knapman promised to return to the matter of the gun and how it was possible to bring it in to the country - but failed to do so. Earlier in the inquiry Police Commander Steve Allen said that despite the fact that a risk assessment form had not been completed, he didn’t believe the outcome would have been affected one iota as there was nothing to suggest Pech was a real and immediate danger.

Knapman did say the Metropolitan Police had made a number of mistakes in handling the case but insisted none were serious. Instead he launched an attack on bureaucracy and ‘the present day infection of requirements to have more and more paper and computer trails’. Then he targeted the press and accused them of creating a culture of blame, which led to organisations ‘passing around a parcel of retribution - to end up in someone’s lap’ and the singling out of scapegoats. What these comments had to do with the this case one cannot be sure since the Bernal family merely sought the truth and to identify failures in the system that led to Clare’s death, as well as changing peoples attitudes towards domestic violence and stalking, for the benefit of other young women who may be similarly threatened in the future.

In excusing the police for taking short cuts because of bureaucracy, huge case loads and mountains of paperwork he did absolutely nothing to raise the profile of domestic violence and the real risks so many women and families face today. Neither did he deliver justice for Clare.

But why should we be surprised? He had earlier declared his lack of appetite for broadening this inquest and, true to form, criticised the grieving mother Tricia Bernal in a letter ‘for failing to support her daughter’, and saying that 'it had not gone un-noticed’ that neither she nor her family had attended the court hearing in support of Clare. Yet it was the police and the courts who gave Pech his freedom to carry out the threats they chose to ignore.

On 13th September, 2005, two weeks after his release on bail, Michael Pech went in to Harvey Nichols store in Knightsbridge where, in front of terrified staff and customers, he shot Clare in the back of the head and three more times in her face as she lay dying.

On 18th January 2007, the Westminster coroner Knapman ruled that Clare Bernal was "unlawfully killed" and completely absolved the police and the CPS saying the police could not have prevented her murder - and any mistakes made in assessing the danger Pech posed were “not serious”.

Sandra Horley of the charity Refuge accused Knapman of being blind to the risk posed by stalkers and was appalled by his words. She claimed that this terrible tragedy could have been prevented had the risk Pech posed been initially assessed by a trained and experienced officer. Other experts state that the risks were very overt in this case, however they were not identified, assessed and understood nor were they managed - but this was clearly a high risk case that should have had some form of multi-agency risk management strategy.

Clare’s mother Tricia Bernal was most unhappy with the Coroner's findings and his failure to demand changes in systems and procedures. She would like to see mandatory comprehensive training provided for those dealing with domestic violence and stalking cases. She said that only when the courts and police fully understand the seriousness of these matters and the risks women face that they may begin to receive the help and protection they need.

Comment by Ray Donelan