Official complaint sent to South Yorkshire police

Copy of official complaint sent to South Yorkshire Police.

I’m writing this complaint on behalf of myself and my family in regards to the investigation of my mothers murder ‘Patricia Grainger’ in august 1997. Incident# 990/090808
We as a family feel like we have been failed by the investigators who have been and are still involved in the investigation of my mothers murder,
For a start a main piece of evidence which we all feel could have provided a huge significance to the investigation has been lost/misplaced or destroyed.
We was originally told back in 2008 by our liaison officer at the time that the bed base my mothers body was found under had been lost they didn’t know what happened to it.
It was only after a recent newspaper article that this story had changed to it was never kept as it wasn’t seen as vital evidence.

If the bed base has been misplaced what else has been misplaced or lost during the investigation. and to highlight the significance the bed base could have had, 
take a look at the claudia lawrence investigation from north yorkshire police, finger prints were found on a cigarette butt so the size difference alone shows the possibility that something could have been on that bed base.

We are also unhappy that the current detective could not answer us the simplest of questions and still hasn’t found them out,
The main questions we asked was
whether or not they still had the clothes my mum was wearing when she was murdered, But he doesn’t know,
Other belongings to my mother had been taken back in 1997
he is also unaware if these are still in the possession of south yorkshire police,
I have also since requested details via the freedom of information act but was refused and have been told that should i have any queries i should contact my family liaison officer but we haven’t had one of those since ours retired in 2009 and we only had her for a few months prior to that we had no family liaison officer so how do we contact one,

As stated above with the current detective not knowing the simplest of questions we feel like this investigation is not being taken and done seriously.

It previosuly took me hours to even get a hold of someone at south yorkshire police, If we don’t have a family liaison officer and we can’t get a hold of the detective investigating the case or the detective Superintendent who do we contact.

When we have had contact we have been told the same information over and over that you have nothing to go on and are doing nothing to basically sum it all up.

I feel like i keep repeating myself but its all i can do as throughout this we have had to support ourselves an go on what little information we have and what little information we can share without jeopardizing the investigation.

Prior to creating the website we had no contact from South Yorkshire Police for many years, Upon creating the website and contacting The Sheffield Star, South Yorkshire Police had finally got intouch to tell us the case was still being looked into however it was a cold case.

After more media attention we was then given a family liaison officer who filled us in with what was happening on a regular basis throughout the active media interest, She then retired a few month later in 2009 and since then we have had no family liaison officer and very little satisfactory communication from South Yorkshire police,

The main detective also retired leaving the case with no main detective to instruct on what was going to happen next.

Since our last chat with one of the detectives involved in my mums case we have had no contact from South Yorkshire Police regarding whats happening or who will be the main detective in the case.

Since finding more and more out about whats gone on with the investigation i feel as though South Yorkshire Police has failed, From the start of the investigation they have been ignorant in how they have handled it all.  And have only paid an interest in the case during the active media attention.

I’m not just blaming the fail on the current detectives in this case but mainly on the previous detectives back in 1997 who failed at the start and could be the main reason for the case still being a fail,

We also feel that by denying us to get my mums murder featured on crime watch after 17 years of being undetected is proving how little is being done and how little will be done
We was told back in 2008 the main reason for not going forward with a crimewatch appeal was because MY website had allot of publicity but our point is the publicity for that was aimed  at the website and not the murder investigation.

We feel that the best way forward would be to request a full case review of my mums murder investigation and I’m unsure if this is the right way to go about it but we strongly agree that this is the only way forward from here.