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The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided not to charge a former Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) with any offences, following our investigation into evidence given at the public inquiry into the death of Anthony Grainger, who was shot by GMP in March 2012.

Our investigation, which began in October 2017, looked at the evidence given by former ACC Steven Heywood when he was still a serving officer, particularly in relation to how he recorded information in his police log book.

We completed the investigation in May 2018 and decided there was an indication that he may have committed a criminal offence. The threshold for an IOPC referral is much lower than the threshold applied by the CPS when they consider whether to charge someone with a criminal offence.

We also found that Mr Heywood has a case to answer for gross misconduct. GMP agreed with this but a date for a misconduct hearing has not yet been set. Mr Heywood retired from the force in October this year.

A second investigation linked to the inquiry looked at the conduct of Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Robert Cousen, who gave evidence because of his role as the senior investigating officer.

This investigation was also completed in May 2018 and our findings were shared with GMP. It was agreed that DCI Cousen’s actions did not amount to misconduct, and this was a performance matter that should be dealt with by management action.