Killer gets share of £200k payout over Kevin Nunes murder fiasco
Damages worth £200,000 have been paid to two men jailed over the botched Kevin Nunes murder investigation – including one serving a life sentence for the separate slaying of a soldier.
Staffordshire Police has settled out of court with Antonio Christie and Levi Walker who were suing the force after the Court of Appeal overturned their convictions for the gangland killing.
One of the men has received a staggering £150,000 while the other has been paid £50,000.
Christie, of Great Bridge, and Walker, of Edgbaston, were part of a gang of five convicted of killing amateur footballer-turned-drug dealer Kevin Nunes in Pattingham in 2002.
They were handed life prison sentences in 2008 after being found guilty of murder but had their convictions quashed in 2012 when serious failings and wrongdoing by Staffordshire police officers came to light.
Walker is serving a minimum 30-year prison sentence for the separate murder of Trooper Narel Sharpe in Smethwick in 2004. He was convicted for that killing in 2006.
South Staffordshire MP Gavin Williamson today said: “The public will be appalled that their money has ended up in the hands of a murderer because of the disgraceful way this case was handled.”
The scandal sparked one of the biggest ever internal police inquiries with the force watchdog finally set to release its investigator’s report next month – more than two-and-a-half years after the case was concluded – following pressure from the Express & Star.
Christie and Walker launched civil legal action against the force last year but the case has now been settled.
The £200,000 total will be met by the force and its insurers. A Staffordshire Police spokesman said: “We can confirm that Staffordshire Police received two claims following the acquittal of five men in the Kevin Nunes murder investigation.
“Following consultation with our lawyers and insurers, payments of £50,000 and £150,000 were agreed.”
A total of 14 officers – including three now-retired Chief Constables and a serving Assistant Chief Constable – were subject to a four-year investigation, codenamed Operation Kalmia, by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over the botched probe.
It recommended senior officers face disciplinary action for gross misconduct, but this move was overruled. The final report will be published next month.
The inquiry was sparked after a damning dossier of failings in the unit investigating the 20-year-old’s murder was never disclosed to the jury, judge or lawyers at the original murder trial. No-one faced criminal charges.
Most of the officers concerned retired before disciplinary action could take place. A single junior detective received ‘management advice’.
Whistleblower ex-Detective Inspector Joe Anderson revealed how the force’s star witness drank alcohol with his handlers, how officers covered-up crimes committed by the witness, and how one of the handlers had an affair with a fellow officer – all in the build-up to the murder trial.
A top appeal judge called the case a ‘serious perversion of the course of justice’ and a ‘shocking episode’.
The Express & Star won a year-long Freedom of Information battle against Staffordshire Police earlier this year to make the damning dossier, known as the Costello Report, public.
It followed our own three-year investigation into the case which revealed how before the murder trial the witness and his family were sent on a taxpayer-funded holiday to South Africa, detectives were accused of abusing overtime to earn thousands of pounds, the key witness caused £7,000 of damage to a safe house, and a top officer stopped an investigation into a complaint because it may have derailed the original case.
Murder victim Kevin Nunes, of Whitmore Reans, Wolverhampton, was pistol-whipped and shot five times in September 2002 in a cocaine turf war in a rural country lane in Pattingham.
How the Express & Star revealed shocking handling of Kevin Nunes murder case
For 15 years the Express & Star has been reporting on the murder of Kevin Nunes.
Little did we know when his bullet-ridden body was discovered in Clive Road, Pattingham, in 2002 that we would still be writing about the fallout from his brutal demise nearly two decades later.
For the past three years, this newspaper has been investigating Staffordshire Police’s handling of the case. It has revealed a shocking picture of a dysfunctional force that became ‘out of control’.
At the end of last year, the E&S published a series of hard-hitting articles that exposed shocking events that took place during the original Nunes murder investigation. From a detective having an affair, officer drinking sessions with a protected witness, to a taxpayer-funded ‘holiday’ to South Africa – it shone new light on the scale of wrongdoing in the force.
In December, the E&S won a year-long Freedom of Information battle with Staffordshire Police who had twice rejected requests for a secret damning dossier into the case. In January, the force finally published the report after this newspaper took its fight to the Information Commissioner.
Today, we reveal that two of the five men who had their convictions quashed for the Nunes murder have received substantial damages from the force. And thanks to pressure and campaigning from the E&S, the Independent Police Complaints Commission will next month publish its report.
