Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire

The PSNI’s chief constable asked the ombudsman to conduct an independent investigation after a small amount of herbal cannabis and £195 in cash went missing from a Co Antrim police station after being seized during a house search in July 2014.

A member of police staff realised the items were missing in April 2015 when he accessed the secure locker in which they had been kept in order to log the items on a police computer system.

Police ombudsman investigators obtained police documentation and interviewed the two officers recorded as having had access to the exhibits.

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One officer said the items had never left her possession until she handed the key of the locker to the officer investigating the case.

The investigating officer confirmed he had received the key and said he had at one stage removed three items from the locker as they were required for a suspect interview. These items did not include the missing exhibits, and each was returned to the locker afterwards.

He pointed out, however, that civilian members of police staff would also have had access to the secure locker.

In fact, police ombudsman investigators found that there were no procedures in place to record who had accessed keys for the exhibit store, so that potentially any police officer or civilian member of staff might have accessed the locker in question.

Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, made a number of recommendations to the PSNI for tightening up procedures around the storage of seized exhibits, including an out/in booking process for exhibit store keys.