THE Police Federation has blasted Cumbria's top policeman for not sharing all the results of a review into a collapsed misconduct investi-gation that took three years and cost over £300,000.

The federation, which represents all officers up to and including the rank of chief inspector, criticised Chief Constable Michael Baxter for not sharing the full findings with them.

Chairman of Cumbria Police Federation Jane Goujon said the human costs of such an investigation were "immeas-urable".

She added: "Such a flawed inquiry should never have been allowed to happen in the first place and should never be allowed to happen again."

The review had its roots in anonymous reports, from 1998 to 2000, alleging systematic dishonest misuse of police vehicles by officers, including allegations of criminal use.

Nine officers had to answer a total of 104 allegations of misconduct.

In a second case, to which the Police Federation's comments did not refer, allegations of misconduct were made against a super-intendent.

But both misconduct investigations failed, leading to questions being asked in the House of Commons, and, although not required to do so, Chief Const Baxter began a review of what went wrong.

The results of that review were revealed in secret on Tuesday at a meeting of Cumbria Police Authority.

After the meeting, Chief Const Baxter wanted to be clear on one particular point: "When charges are dismissed, the officers leave the hearing without a stain on their record."

However, he would not divulge the names of any of the officers concerned nor exactly what went wrong in the collapsed misconduct investi-gations.