A police officer has admitted to altering official records related to the search for the missing Dorset teenager Gaia Pope, whose body was found 11 days after his disappearance.
PC David Taylor agreed to add additional details to Dorset police records after the 19-year-old was found dead in 2017.
Investigation attorney Sarah Clarke QC suggested Taylor had “strengthened” records to make the police investigation look better.
Taylor, who was the deputy police investigation coordinator, said he was wrong to have altered the record, but said he had done so not to deceive but to try to provide a more complete picture of what happened.
He added: “I wanted to gather all the information. In retrospect, would I do the same thing again? Absolutely not. It was wrong. It doesn’t look great, and I apologize for that.”
Pope, who had severe epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder after being allegedly raped, disappeared on November 7, 2017. Finally, the college student found himself in a dense undergrowth on a cliff near a beauty spot called Dancing Ledge, after she died of hypothermia. the investigation in Bournemouth has heard.
Among the details Taylor added was a note that a search helicopter may not have found the teenager due to “dense vegetation bags.”
Clarke told the officer, “When you added that retrospective entry you already knew they had found it. It can be said that the final version of this record was deliberately made to look like it was contemporary when it wasn’t.
“By adding these entries, you have improved. You did not tell anyone that you entered this after the fact. You never said that you added a series of retrospective entries until the issue came to light in the middle of this investigation.
“To be honest, this is one of the first lessons of the police school: taking the example of a paperback, if you want to go back and add a note, it teaches you to put a star and say it’s a retrospective entry.
“You were making additions to the record. It could be suggested that you strengthened it and made it look better than it was.”
Taylor said, “I can understand why the inference would be removed.”
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Police officers have admitted a number of misdemeanors and missed opportunities during the search. An official who received discipline on the investigation said a number of mistakes were made the night the Pope disappeared, including not deploying two officers who had been available to search for her and not handing the case over to others. agents at the end of their investigation. turn.
The investigating jury had heard that Pope’s family had repeatedly urged police to search the Dancing Ledge area, but heard officers concentrating elsewhere. It has also been claimed that the police investigating the rape charge advised her not to continue the case, telling her, “We do not believe there is any chance of her succeeding and it would be very traumatic.”
The investigation continues.