Collapsed court case care warden Elizabeth Fairbank: 'Receipts destroyed by Hull police would have proved my innocence'
A WOMAN who faced a two-year fight to clear her name after the police destroyed vital evidence is demanding an apology.
Warden Elizabeth Fairbank battled for two years against charges of fraud from an elderly resident in her care at sheltered housing complex Alexander Hutchison Court in north Hull.
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Battle: Warden Elizabeth Fairbank worked at Alexander Hutchison Court in north Hull.
She was in charge of handling one resident's finances when almost £9,000 was left unaccounted for.
Miss Fairbank claims she used some of the savings to decorate the woman's flat.
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The police were handed bundles of receipts, which Miss Fairbank claims prove her innocence and show all the missing money went on refurbishing the lady's flat.
Another carer from the complex gave evidence stating she countersigned one receipt for a carpet.
However, the police's property unit destroyed the evidence after the officer in the case failed to respond to an e-mail confirming the evidence was still needed.
It was not until the second day of Miss Fairbank's trial that the police admitted the evidence in the form of receipts had existed but had been destroyed, although Miss Fairbank's legal team had been asking for the documents for two years.
A judge stopped the trial on the grounds she could not be fairly tried.
Miss Fairbank, 35, said: "Those receipts would have proved my innocence. Now, I will never be able to fully clear my name because of this.
"I have been through two years of hell and the police kept telling my legal team the receipts did not exist when I knew they did. My life has been completely and utterly devastated by this.
"I faced losing my career and going to prison if convicted.
"The police have admitted they made a mistake but I have received no apology.
"I don't see how on earth we can trust the justice system and the police when something like this can happen to a normal person like me. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
"I was fortunate to have the barrister I did, who spent endless hours going through the information and who believed that these receipts existed.
"What the police did was slapdash and incompetent. This all been a complete nightmare."
Miss Fairbank is considering legal action against Humberside Police over the case.
When the case collapsed, Detective Superintendent Scott Young said: "Unfortunately, despite great efforts made by Humberside Police to ensure all administrative processes are fail-safe, occasionally incidents such as this do happen.
"Sadly, on this occasion, evidence appears to have been destroyed because of a mistaken belief that it was no longer needed."
He said a "more robust" IT system would be introduced to prevent similar problems.
Miss Fairbank, of Bilton, faced eight counts of theft.
If new evidence is found in the future, proceedings against her can be restarted.
Miss Fairbank, who had worked as a warden at the sheltered housing complex and left in 2008, had been accused of stealing £8,723 from an elderly woman suffering from memory loss.
Comments
by audemars
Saturday, October 27 2012, 11:08AM
“An enhanced CRB check shows non-conviction information, even if you have never been - wait for it - cautioned, convicted, arrested, questioned, interviewed or even informed you have committed a crime - there can be items on there! It was all part of yet another government knee jerk initiative, this time following the horrendous Soham tragedy. You need an enhanced CRB for any job involving caring, teaching, nursing, most police jobs, basically any job involving direct and/or supervisory contact with people.”
by beverleybard
Thursday, October 25 2012, 7:54PM
“Police inefficiency has caused this case to collapse - at a cost to the public purse of around £20,000. Just one more example of the cavalier attitude to funding that those in receipt of taxpayers money have, e.g "there's more where that came from"!”
by 23041642
Thursday, October 25 2012, 5:56PM
“The CPS wouldn't have pursued it unless therewas a better than evens chance of sucess at court. That said; they should have withdrawn it once it was discovered the evidence had been binned... unless there was other evidence we are unaware of. The lady hasn't been convicted so I can't imagine how any future CRB check would be a problem for her. Now the police are on the back foot over this I see she's going in for the kill and no doubt the green eyed compo monster ridden by Neil Hudgill will ride into town.
If you didn't do it then I understand your frustration at the police. If you did then you're lucky, very lucky. But we'll never know will we?”
by censored
Thursday, October 25 2012, 5:22PM
“How lucky was that?”
by audemars
Thursday, October 25 2012, 5:06PM
“So the police were still trying to push for prosecution despite having destroyed the evidence?
I bet they were hoping to wing it, good job the judge saw through it! You cannot try someone without evidence! Even in an emotive case like this one you have to have proof.
More evidence that the police/CPS are both incompetent and corrupt!
Stealing off the elderly is a horrendous crime but you still have to go though due process!”
by susieb10
Thursday, October 25 2012, 11:55AM
“Humberside police are foolish idiots and the fact that they were aware that this evidence was destroyed and yet they still proceed with the case is wrong, they tried to deceive the court by having a person prosecuted and had no evidence. Typical of Humberside Police. Maybe that is why they have had so many complaints put in about them.”
by David_Nivea
Thursday, October 25 2012, 11:30AM
“Pity for HDM that the police didn't destroy the photgraphic evidence that proves that the address involved is "Alexander Hutchison Court", and not "...Hutchinson..." as appears twice in the article.”
by thesnooper
Thursday, October 25 2012, 10:47AM
“as with all the other people posting here i do not believe for one minute that an elderly person would spend £9000 on a small flat, i would imagine for that price you could easily replace all the furniture, decorate, new carpet and then some.
the easy thing would be to get her to point out what was bought where from and check with the stores they will have copy receipts”
by work4aliving
Thursday, October 25 2012, 10:21AM
“im sorry but somthing doesnt sound right a one bedroomed flat cost nearly 9 k to decorate i have a 3 bed house and to decorate the full house and wooden dlooring wouldnt cost that.”
by faythy
Thursday, October 25 2012, 9:59AM
“A quick google points to it being a housing association, which generally don't pay for new carpets or wallpapering YorkieTed. It says 'some' of the missing £9k was used for decorating so could be a sum substantially less than that, that was used to spruce the place up. It's a lot of missing money though regardless.
Lets hope when the police move into their newly built and decorated building, they can look after things like evidence, a lot better!”