A senior Met Police officer is facing a misconduct hearing for alleged failures in the investigation into the disappearance of Wembley woman Saima Ahmed, who was mysteriously found dead in Scotland early last year.
Ms Ahmed went missing from her home in Oakington Manor Drive, in Wembley, in August 2015 and her body was found on a golf course outside Edinburgh five months later. Her disappearance and subsequent death remain unresolved.
Now the acting detective chief inspector (A/DCI) who led the investigation is to face a misconduct meeting, accused of a breach of his professional standards. He must answer accusations that he and his team failed to pursue lines of enquiry relating to the last sighting of the dead woman, which was on CCTV footage that recorded her at Wembley Central station boarding a London Overground train bound for Watford Junction.
Two police constables will meanwhile face unsatisfactory performance procedures for discrepancies in the way information was recorded in the initial stages of the investigation, which led to vital details being unavailable to investigators later on.
Two other Brent police officers – a detective inspector and a detective constable – were found to have no case to answer.
“The IPCC investigation into how the Metropolitan Police handled Saima Ahmed’s disappearance formed the opinion that, in places, officers may not have met the levels required by their professional standards,” said IPCC Commission-Delegate Colin Dewar. “It is important that improvements are made for future investigations and that the officers will be accountable for their actions.”
Police have never made public any leads they have regarding the case of Ms Ahmed. She went missing after leaving her home in the morning of August 30 2015. She was recorded on CCTV footage withdrawing money from an ATM on Wembley High Road and boarding a train to Watford Junction.
She is then believed to have boarded a train to Northampton; after that her movements remain vague, until her body was discovered at Gogarburn golf course outside Edinburgh – 400 miles from her home and a city where she had no known family or friends.
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