Martyn Jones MP comments on the recent IPCC investigation into Richard Brunstrom

Friday November 9th

“The IPCC report quite clearly highlights failings in this instance. It stops well short of exonerating Mr Brunstrom and expresses severe reservations about his actions in this case. It questions his line of thought regarding the handling of the media and highlights that ultimate responsibility to assure that these photos were not released in the public domain lay with Mr Brunstrom; a responsibility he failed to exercise.

Despite the report finding Mr Brunstrom free of any official legal wrong doing. I stand by the view I expressed in April that Mr Brunstrom should have resigned over this incident. The report suggests his complicity in many errors of judgement when it comes to handling the media. When family grievance is concerned mistakes are as big or as small as the consequences they cause. Mr Brunstrom may only have been technically guilty of a blind ‘excess of confidence’ but the consequences were enormous and his actions caused immense distress to an already grieving family.

I have listened to Mr Brunstrom’s protestations, that he acted throughout to protect motorcyclists in the future. Whilst I acknowledge that he in no way set out to deliberately place these photos in the public eye, I simply cannot concur with the view that the Chief Constable’s motivations in this case were admirable. I feel strongly that if at any point in time his overarching zeal to persecute motorcyclists had taken a back seat to common sense he would have perceived the dangers implicit in using these photographs in his presentation.

I express my deepest sympathies to the whole Gibney family and I profoundly regret that their suffering has been thrust into the media spotlight in such a brutal manner. I hope they can take some solace from the IPCC’s condemnation of Mr Brunstrom’s and North Wales Police Force’s actions in handling a media event and that it will help them in some small way with their understandable and incalculable grief.

I hope that the lessons of this report will be well learned.”