A BRITISH Police Complaints Authority investigation has cleared Gloucester police over allegations that officers used the home of serial killers Frederick and Rosemary West as a brothel and drinking club.
The complaint was made by Mrs Sharon Compton, a friend of the Wests' murder victim, Alison Chambers. She claimed in a Daily Express report last November that officers regularly visited the house in the late 1970s when torture and murder victims were secretly buried in the cellar.
On one occasion, she alleged, she was tied in a chair after a tore lure session but was freed by a man in a raincoat which covered a uniform. After a seven month independent investigation the PCA said yesterday that it could find no evidence to support that allegation, or her claim that her allegations were not properly and fully investigated.
The force is now in talks with the Crown Prosecution Service on possible action against Mrs Compton over information she gave to the Cromwell Street Inquiry team and to the PCA investigation.
The PCA statement said there was no evidence to support the claim that the "raincoat man" was a police officer. They revealed that the complainant claimed to have been present when one of the West murders was committed.
"Her description of the event bore no relation to the medical evidence," they said. The complainant was living at a Gloucestershire children's home at the time of the alleged "raincoat man" incident.