Police failed to properly investigate the suspicious death of a 13-month-old girl in Cumbria and made a catalogue of basic errors, a high court judge has found.
Poppi Worthington died in hospital on 12 December 2012 after collapsing at her home in Barrow-in-Furness – but a postmortem into her death was kept secret until now.
Published after the Guardian and other media organisations successfully challenged a gagging order won by Cumbria county council, it found that her right leg was broken and she had suffered “acute” internal injuries.
The report indicated the cause of death of the toddler was “unascertained”. But Dr Alison Armer, the pathologist who first examined her body, told a hearing in Liverpool on Wednesday she believed Poppi’s intimate injuries were the result of a sexual assault.
Armer communicated these fears at the time. Yet Cumbria police failed to launch a “real” investigation until more than nine months after Poppi’s death, believing the pathologist “may have jumped to conclusions” when she raised her suspicions about a possible sexual assault, a judge has found.
One senior detective refused to authorise the forensic testing of any seized samples and failed to “clearly” pass on the pathologist’s concerns to social workers, meaning that Poppi’s surviving siblings were not taken into care until after their parents were arrested in August 2013, the judge found. It was September 2013 before police interviewed any potential witnesses, including paramedics, nurses, doctors and family members.
Three police officers have been investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The outcome will only be published following the conclusion of all legal proceedings, including a second inquest, an IPCC spokeswoman said.
But Cumbria police confirmed on Wednesday that one officer was suspended and has since retired and the other two officers have moved to different roles.
Poppi’s father, Paul Worthington, 47, was arrested more than nine months after her death on suspicion of sexually assaulting her, when Armer’s full postmortem report was finally completed. Poppi’s mother, who cannot be named, was also arrested.
A court heard last year that in 2003 another allegation of sexual abuse was made against Worthington, which was later retracted. Worthington also admits that in 1995 he was “informally interviewed” by police because of his association with “someone who may have committed offences against children”.
In March, Cumbria police said the parents would face no charges. Both have denied any involvement in Poppi’s death or her sexual abuse.
The details of the police investigation emerged ahead of a review of medical evidence, which started on Wednesday in Liverpool.
Mr Justice Peter Jackson, the judge who has been dealing with the case for the past 18 months, ruled this month the time had come for “as much information as possible” to be placed in the public domain after submissions from a number of media organisations.
Poppi’s death was previously shrouded in mystery with the judgment being kept private so as not to prejudice any criminal proceedings and an inquest controversially taking only seven minutes to declare her death as “unexplained”.
In his fact-finding judgment, produced as part of the care proceedings in relation to the other children in the family, Jackson suggested Poppi’s death “did not receive the professional response to which she and her family were entitled”.
He suggested “extreme” and unusual delay in the production of the postmortem caused police to carry out only “minimal investigation” in the intervening nine months.
The judge found that in the immediate aftermath of her death, officers failed to comply with basic procedures. Detectives failed to preserve potentially important items of evidence for forensic analysis, including Poppi’s pillow, her clothing, and her father’s computer. Worthington admitted to police he watched pornography on his laptop on the night of Poppi’s death.
The last used nappy believed to have been worn by Poppi was removed from the house by a relative with the knowledge of a police officer and placed in an outside bin – but was not found in a later search the same day.
Detectives did not order a forensic medical examination at the time of death. Swabs were not taken until the postmortem five days after Poppi’s death, despite delays meaning forensic analysis can be prejudiced.
According to the judge’s findings, neither of the senior detectives in charge of the case visited the home after Poppi’s death, as police procedure dictates. Nor did they order a reconstruction with the parents at home so that their accounts could be understood and investigations focused.
The parents’ mobile phones and Facebook accounts were not analysed. In addition, they did not engage a paediatrician with specialist knowledge of investigating sexual abuse in order for there to be a physical examination of the child, a viewing of the home and a report for the pathologist.
After being criticised in Jackson’s report, which was kept secret until Wednesday, Cumbria police and the National Crime Agency commissioned expert reports from three other pathologists. All three contest Armer’s view that Poppi was sexually assaulted before she died, Liverpool family court heard on Wednesday.
The detective inspector who led the investigation was “driven with evident reluctance to accept a number of failings in the inquiry”, Jackson wrote in his ruling.
In his judgment, Jackson said Poppi’s surviving siblings should have immediately been medically examined following her death. He also criticised Cumbria county council for allowing these children to return home afterwards “without any effective child protection measures being taken”, saying they should have taken legal advice straight away.
Luckily, there is no evidence they suffered any harm in the 10-month period before being removed from their parents’ care, he added.
In a statement on Wednesday, Cumbria county council said: “At the time Poppi Worthington died, Cumbria children’s services were not involved with her or her family. Following her death, we worked with her family and other agencies to ensure her siblings were not at risk of harm, ultimately making an application to the court to bring them into our care.
“The judge found that this application should have been made sooner, given the circumstances of the case. We fully accept this criticism and the judge’s view that this had a bearing on the wider investigation into Poppi’s death.”
• This article was amended on 25 November 2015 to clarify the identity of the judge in the case. An earlier version referred to Mr Justice Jackson, but there are two high court judges with the surname Jackson.
