THE disgraced chief constable of Grampian police is planning a new career: helping the poor in Africa. Dr Ian Oliver, who resigned on Friday after a report condemned his force's handling of the murder of a boy by a paedophile, believes he may be unemployable in this country.
Oliver, 58, is an evangelical Christian whose wife Elsie has worked with the underprivileged. After last week's publicity the Olivers believe that getting a job will be difficult for them in Britain.
"If nobody wants me, then I'll have learnt a bitter lesson. One thing is certain, there is a life beyond the police service," said Oliver in an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday.
"There's plenty of voluntary work I can do around the world. At the moment I don't need to rush out and take the first job that comes along but I'd be kidding myself if I thought I could survive both emotionally and financially without doing something.
"If it comes to it, there's a huge amount of voluntary work that needs to be done in Africa. Both my wife and I have worked there before and it is a continent that appreciates what we can give them."
Oliver, a former high-flyer who became a chief constable 19 years ago at the age of 39, had already agreed to resign this summer after a newspaper published photographs of him embracing the young wife of a businessman at a secret meeting in woods near Aberdeen.
Speaking about the affair for the first time, Elsie Oliver said: "This wasn't as bad as it was portrayed in the media. There are others in public life who have behaved far worse, Robin Cook among them. But because of the actions of that little so-and-so [the woman] it has come out far worse than it was." Oliver was forced to resign last week after publication of a report into Grampian's handling of an investigation last year into the death of Scott Simpson, 9, who was abducted and strangled by a known paedophile, Stephen Leisk. Donald Dewar, the Scottish secretary, demanded Oliver "pack his bags and go".
The report pinpointed 37 failings and said Grampian police were guilty of "corporate failure". It took police five days to find Simpson's body at a spot which had already been searched. Proper use of computer record matching would have thrown up Leisk's name as a prime suspect within hours of the abduction.
Oliver admitted at the time there had been failures. But he said Simpson had been killed within an hour of his abduction so that the police could not be held responsible for preventing the murder. Oliver attacked Dewar's public denunciation as political interference. "It's absolutely ridiculous. Mr Dewar would be legally unable to stand up and force one of his own members of staff to resign purely on the basis of accusations and slander," he said.
The dangers of political interference in policing is a subject about which Oliver feels passionately; he has written two books on the subject.
"I'm not making allegations of witch-hunts. All I can point to is incompetence, legal procedures and the flouting of the rules of natural justice. I cannot tell you what the reasons are for that. The circumstances surrounding the Simpson case do not justify the resignation of anyone, far less the chief of police. It is reprehensible."
His wife added: "The police force do not want a clever clogs, they want Mr Plods. And there's plenty of them around."
Oliver dismissed revelations concerning his relationship with a married woman as "wholly tangential" to his conduct as a police officer. "Highlighting this matter was merely a vehicle for discrediting my professionalism." What does the future hold for Ian Oliver? "I don't know," he said. "I'm open to offers. Whatever it is, it has to be something worth doing and not just lucrative."
His wife added: "Do we look like arrogant, uncaring people? Anyone who knows my husband knows he goes out of his way to help people. Why they have this impression of him I'll never know." The Sunday Times 26/04/98
