An investigation has been launched after a coroner left on a train a file containing sensitive information on the police inquiry into the murder of 14-year-old Alice Gross.
Chinyere Inyama, senior west London coroner, lost the 30-page file in November last year, a month after the schoolgirl’s body was found weighted down in the Grand Union Canal in Ealing, west London.
Police attempted to recover the file, said to have contained evidence against prime suspect, Arnis Zalkalns, but concluded it had probably been “destroyed as waste”. The Ministry of Justice is now investigating why the file was taken from the coroner’s office.
Alice’s mother and father, Ros Hodgkiss and Jose Gross, are furious at the loss and have demanded to know why they were not told. They said in a statement: “We have looked to the police and coroner to help us through our awful loss. Yet now we learn they – either independently or together – have withheld from us the loss of this terribly sensitive information about Alice.
“We are extremely concerned, bewildered and angry – and we have asked for a full written explanation as to what exactly happened and why we were not told.”
The police hunt for Alice, who disappeared from her home in west London last August, was Scotland Yard’s biggest search operation since the 7 July London bombings. Her body was found on 30 September, and days later Zalkalns, 41, who had previously served seven years for murdering his wife, was found hanged in Boston Manor Park, west London. Had he not died, he would have been charged with Alice’s murder.
An inquest into Alice’s death was opened and adjourned last October, but the coroner lost the vital document a month later after it was given to him for his preparations for full inquests into the deaths of the teenager and Zalkans.
A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “In November 2014 the MPS was informed by HM coroner, London west, that he had inadvertently disposed of a single document relating to the police evidence against Arnis Zalkalns. An investigation to recover it was undertaken. This concluded that it was highly likely it had been destroyed as waste.”
The Ministry of Justice said in a statement: “This clearly appears to be a troubling incident. A full investigation is now under way.”
A full inquest into Alice’s death is due to be held at the end of the year and the coroner has yet to rule whether it will be a jury inquest and its scope.
The Mail on Sunday reported that Alice’s parents knew nothing of the missing file until a whistleblower approached the newspaper last week. It published a statement from them which read: “We have looked to the police and coroner to help us through our awful loss. Yet now we learn they … have withheld from us the loss of this terribly sensitive information about Alice. We are extremely concerned, bewildered and angry – and we have asked for a full written explanation as to what exactly happened and why we were not told.”
