BUNGLING COPS COVERED UP FIFE MURDER SCENE FIASCO

Two police officers, who tried to cover up their bungling at a gruesome murder scene in Fife, have appeared in court.

Arriving to find a man lying dead in a front garden, they placed a blanket over the body without first checking with the detective in charge if that was the right course of action.

The blanket, viewed as “crucial” in the chain of evidence by the murder team, was then removed and dumped in a rubbish bin at their police station by the blundering PCs.

This resulted in their colleagues carrying out widespread searches for the missing item in gardens and bins in Oakley as well as police stations, without success.

Louise Lawson, 26 and Kimberley Jandu, 33, tried to cover up their actions. Detectives had to take five statements from the pair before the truth emerged.

They had been the first officers on the scene following the horrific murder of 57-year-old Henry White (pictured), battered in an Oakley flat and then thrown into the garden where he was found dead early in the morning.

Christopher Brown was later convicted of the murder.

Lawson and Jandu, who are both still serving officers currently on administrative duties, appeared in the dock at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court today.

They admitted that between 22nd and 30th March 2023 at Erskine Wynd, Oakley, Dalgety Bay police station and elsewhere,

as police constables, they neglected or violated their duties.

Having been the first officers to attend at the scene of a suspicious death and having removed a medical blanket which they had placed over the body, they failed to return it for evidential purposes and then repeatedly failed to provide complete and accurate accounts of their actions both verbally and in written form.

Depute fiscal James Moncrieff told the court that at 6.10am the ambulance service alerted police that they were on their way to Oakley following reports of a male lying face down in a front garden.

Lawson and Jandu were dispatched and arrived at around 6.30am. By this time the paramedics had reported the male was deceased.

A medical blanket had been obtained from the paramedics and placed over the body by the police officers.

This had been done before PC Jandu asked a detective inspector over the radio if a blanket should be placed over the body and he replied, “Absolutely not”.

Jandu was told to carry out no further inquiry but to cordon off the area with tape.

Jandu took the blanket to the ambulance and a paramedic placed it in an orange medical waste bag then handed it to Lawson.

In their initial statements, both officers failed to make any mention of them checking the body for identification, covering the body with a blanket or what happened to it after it was removed.

A murder investigation was launched and when a detective called Jandu on the phone she said a blanket had not been placed over the body.

A second statement was taken from the pair and Jandu said the blanket had been returned to a paramedic. Lawson said she did not know what had happened to the blanket.

At that stage, the detectives believed the recovery of the blanket was “crucial”.

When a third statement was taken from them, Lawson became upset and began crying. She said she believed she had “inadvertently left the blanket behind” at the crime scene and did not know where it was now.

She claimed she had “made an error by not seizing the blanket as a production” because she was not aware of its forensic value.

Searches were then carried out at the police stations at Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath and Dalgety Bay as well as in gardens and rubbish bins in Oakley but the blanket was not found.

On 29th March, Lawson was off duty when she turned up at Dunfermline police station to speak to a detective. She was crying and upset over inaccuracies in her statements.

She admitted that they had covered the body with a blanket but she was unaware of its forensic significance.

She said that she had disposed of the blanket in a rubbish bin at Dalgety Bay police station after returning there.

Lawson claimed she had not disclosed this previously “due to being fearful of any repercussions”.

The bin was searched but it had been emptied days before.

Lawson said that on the journey back to the police station she had asked Jandu what should happen with the blanket and was told, “It doesn’t matter.”

Lawson said she had been unable to sleep at night over the matter and apologised. She said she wished she had been “honest from the start”.

CCTV from the police station showed Lawson putting the medical waste bag containing the blanket in a bin as Jandu looked on.

Sheriff James Williamson called for reports and deferred sentencing until 13th October.

Last November, Brown was jailed for a minimum of 13 years for murdering Mr White in a brutal and prolonged attack.