A senior police officer who was personally criticised for her handling of the Poppi Worthington case is set to be appointed as Cumbria’s chief constable.

Calls mounted for a public inquiry into Cumbria police after Michelle Skeer, the deputy chief constable, was announced as the preferred candidate for the top job.

Skeer was one of the Cumbria police officers criticised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) over the force’s “unstructured and disorganised” investigation into the death of the 13-month-old in December 2012.

A coroner ruled earlier this month that Poppi, “a fit and active, robust little girl”, suffocated after being sexually abused by her father, Paul Worthington.

Worthington has been investigated several times over Poppi’s death but never charged and maintains his innocence. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reviewed the evidence in 2016 and found there was “no realistic prospect” of a conviction after police failed to collect vital evidence.

Cumbria’s police and crime commissioner, Peter McCall, announced on Monday that Skeer was the preferred candidate to become the force’s new chief constable following a “rigorous two-day selection process”.

The move drew immediate criticism from John Woodcock, the MP for Barrow and Furness, who has fought for a public inquiry into the failed investigation into Poppi’s death. He said the announcement “gives fresh impetus to our calls for a public inquiry to restore confidence in the force”.

In a report published in March last year, the IPCC criticised Skeer for failing to refer the case to the police watchdog or the force’s own misconduct department even though she was aware of possible conduct issues.

The IPCC report said Skeer took more than a month to call a meeting to discuss scathing criticisms of the investigation into Poppi’s death made by a family court judge.

The meeting only lasted 30 minutes, which “would not have been time to go through all the points raised in the judgment”, the watchdog said.

The IPCC criticised Skeer for failing to alert the force’s professional standards department even though she “suspected there may be some conduct issues” arising from the bungled investigation.

The watchdog went on to criticise Skeer for not referring the case to the IPCC. It said: “More than two months passed before the matter was even raised for the attention of the PSD [professional standards department] and even then it was as a result of contact with the IPCC rather than an internal decision.”

The IPCC said it had not found any evidence to suggest that Skeer deliberately attempted to stop the matter coming to the attention of its investigators, but added that it was “reasonable to suggest that without IPCC intervention this matter may never have been referred to them”.







Woodcock, who is the MP for Worthington’s constituency, said home secretary Amber Rudd should intervene and appoint someone independent if Skeer’s appointment was signed off by Cumbria’s police and crime commissioner.



