Op Delhi was ‘textbook overzealous policing’, former defendants say 

Operation Delhi was “a textbook example of overzealous policing”, three former defendants in the investigation said following publication of the McGrail Inquiry report.  

Thomas Cornelio, John Perez and Caine Sanchez, the former Operation Delhi defendants, as they are referred to in the report, said their lives were upturned for “daring to compete with the Bland Group”. 

“We hope this comprehensive report will finally put an end to the speculation that we still endure,” they said in a statement.   

“We are grateful to the chairman, supported by the Inquiry team, for the care he has taken in his report to remind the reader at every stage that the allegations against us were no more than that - unproven allegations which…we were never able to challenge.” 

The three said they had long believed that the processes adopted by the RGP and the Office of Criminal Prosecutions and Litigation (OCPL) that led to them being charged “must have been deeply flawed”.  

They welcomed that Inquiry chairman Sir Peter Openshaw had agreed “in trenchant terms” in the report. 

“No-one should have to undergo the stress of being prosecuted for a serious offence unless a thorough and transparent review, independent of the police, has determined that there is sufficient evidence to support the charge,” they said in the statement. 

“We hope that the chairman's recommendation 18 is adopted not only for applications for search warrants but for charging decisions as well.” 

“OCPL must do more than just rubber-stamp RGP decisions, and unless similar proposals are adopted, the risk will remain that others will find themselves in the same position as we did.” 

In that recommendation, Sir Peter said the OCPL should consider in detail any application for a search warrant in high profile, sensitive or serious cases, or cases which give rise to complex issues of fact or law. 

“We would also encourage everyone to carefully read the Chairman’s Annex 1, and in particular his paragraph A1.166, in which he sets out all the ways in which the RGP failed in their duty to make proper disclosure to the Inquiry,” the former Operation Delhi defendants added in the statement. 

“How can we trust a police force to preserve vital evidence when they lose or destroy their own records - including those kept by their own Commissioner of Police?” 

“We maintain that Operation Delhi was a textbook example of overzealous policing done at the behest of powerful business interests,” the statement added. 

“The wholesale destruction by the police of its own electronic and documentary evidence relating to this investigation brought the RGP's professional standards and systems into disrepute and undermined public trust in what should be a fair and independent police service for the public good.” 

“The publication of the report, however, does not deal with the injustice we have faced.” 

“We will now continue with our legal actions against the RGP and OCPL.”