Operation Century - Essex Chief Constable Letter

Essex Chief Constable Letter

The then Chief Constable of Essex, John H Burrow. CBE. in correspondence wrote:

Essex Police is, and will remain, committed to ensuring the highest principles in dealing with persons suspected of committing crimes..." (14 May 1998), "The approved plan of action quite specifically sought to create a realistic scenario without direct threats being made against any individual" (29 May 1998), "I am not prepared to engage in retrospective or hypothetical analysis of issues emanating from Operation Century and can assist no further.(11 June 1998)

A senior Essex officer (Detective Superintendent Ivan Dibley) subsequently boasted in a media interview that he had had no intention of approaching certain Century suspects in the normal way and claimed that those Century suspects had been Rettendon murder suspects from the start of their Rettendon investigations . It was similarly stated to journalists by Det. Supt. Dibley that in deploying Century tactics he was "breaking new ground" and hoping that they'd get away with it at court if evidence had been obtained. Another highly dubious and judicially censored undercover police operation (Operation Edzell - deployed by the Metropolitan Police Service in the then relatively current Rachel Nickell murder case) was also cited to journalists by Supt. Dibley as the backdrop against which Century had been adjudged by police as being fit to deploy.