THE recent history of Cleveland Police has been a sorry state of affairs. Due to the serious misjudgements of those in charge during previous regimes, the force has lurched from one embarrassing crisis to another.

Four years ago, Sean Price became the first chief constable to be dismissed in 35 years after a disciplinary hearing found he had asked a member of staff to enquire about a job for the former police authority chairman Dave McLuckie’s daughter, then denied doing so when he was investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

A year later, Mr McLuckie was jailed for perverting the course of justice after being found guilty of persuading a friend to accept his speeding points to protect his career.

Today The Northern Echo unearths another controversial episode in what became a soap opera starring Mr Price and Mr McLuckie.

Official documents, taken from a private meeting of senior force officials, contain strong accusations that Mr Price failed to act on an historic allegation of sex abuse by Mr McLuckie – a claim that we fully accept is vehemently denied.

However, the allegation wasn’t even registered as a potential crime and there are further disturbing suggestions that force officials attempted to discredit the alleged victim.

The documents in our possession also highlight the fact that key legal advice – warning against the legality of Mr Price being awarded a lucrative “golden handcuffs” deal – was never passed on to police authority members.

We fully appreciate that these are historic matters but, given Cleveland Police’s track record, we believe there is a clear public interest in publishing the information contained in the documents which have never previously been open to public scrutiny.

Why wasn’t the abuse allegation properly recorded and investigated? Why was there an apparent attempt to discredit the complainant?

And why wasn’t important legal advice made available to the police authority?

The questions about the way Cleveland Police operated at the time just keep coming.