By Lucy Caulket-
Sussex police are to be investigated over their wrong treatment of murdered Shana Grice.
Grice, murdered by sick Michael Lane, reported seven calls made by Lane on June 10, just 24 hours after being arrested and warned by police to stay away from him. Police told her there were no further lines of inquiry and that the case will be left on file. Then On July 12, Grice called the police to report being followed by Lane, but police treated the incident as low risk.
In March 2016, Grice complained to Sussex Police that Lane had tried to grab her phone, but instead of arresting Lane, police issued her with a fixed penalty notice for ”having caused wasteful employment of police by making a false report”. Text messages were shown to police confirming Grice’s interest in being with her, but she was punished for failing to reveal she had been in a relationship with him
19-year-old Grice endured months of harassment and stalking from her ex-boyfriend, Michael Lane. However, police issued the frightened teenager with a fixed penalty notice for wasting police time because she failed to reveal she had been in a relationship with him.
Lane had admitted he was ”not right in the head” during a previous phone call to his former lover and promised not to contact her again. ”I know, I am not right in the head. If I was, I wouldn’t have done that would I”, he said in the recorded telephone call. Give replies, ‘maybe you need to seek help then”.
Obsessed Lane killed the teenager on August 25, 2016, after being angered by the knowledge Grice was rekindling her relationship with an old flame, Ashley Cooke. The 27-year-old cold blooded murderer slit her throat and set her room on fire in a jealous rage but claimed to have come across the body when he decided to pop round to find out why she had not left for work.
According to his lying brain, he was in shock and did not call police because he didn’t want what he saw to be true. His lies backfired as it emerged in court that he could not accept the break up of the relationship, and told a friend ”she will pay for what she’s done”.
However, the jury at Lewes Crown Court took found the tyre fitter guilty of murder, to the sound of claps and cheers.
Months later Lane attacked his former girlfriend and slit her throat with a knife before setting fire to her bedroom.
Sentencing Lane today to a minimum of 25 years in jail, Mr Justice Nicholas Green criticised police for taking sides with the stalker.
He said: ‘In other words, she was treated as the wrongdoer and having committed a criminal offence and Michael Lane was treated as the victim.
‘There was seemingly no appreciation on the part of those investigating that a young woman in a relationship with a man could at one and the same time be vulnerable and at risk of serious harm.