Whistleblower named in fire chief's ‘suicide note' given police protection

Telegraph

17-05-2025

A whistleblower named in a fire chief's alleged 'suicide note' is to be given police protection at the inquest, The Telegraph can reveal.
Wayne Brown, Britain's first black fire chief, was found dead at his Birmingham apartment less than a year after being appointed to the top job at West Midlands Fire Service.
Ahead of the inquest on Monday, detectives have been called in to investigate safety expert Ben Walker's claims he had been threatened. Mr Walker reported Mr Brown for allegedly fabricating qualifications on his CV.
Mr Walker, who is now bringing a £7.2million claim for damages against the fire service and West Midlands Police, was issued with a threat to life warning by officers immediately after the death of Mr Brown and recently received messages telling him to 'stop hiding' and to hand over his home address.
Officers assigned to the inquest have been made aware of the concerns and it is thought protection could include a chaperone.
Mr Brown, a highly respected and 'inspirational' firefighter who had worked his way up the ranks, became chief fire officer of West Midlands Fire Service in April 2023.
He had spent three decades in the fire brigade and had responded to the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 that claimed 72 lives and terror attacks.
But he died in January 2024, a day after the service announced he was under investigation over claims about his qualifications for the role.
At the time the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority said his death was not being treated as suspicious by police.
The claims centred on a business administration qualification, which is a requirement for the £170,000-a-year role.
The claims were made by Mr Walker, a fire safety expert, who had written to Mr Brown's superiors.
He was later charged with harassing Mr Brown in the months before his death, but denied the charges.
They were officially dropped for lack of evidence earlier this year and he now claims he has received threatening messages on his LinkedIn account by someone angered by the treatment of the former fire chief.
West Midlands Police has provided reassurances to Mr Walker ahead of the inquest at Birmingham Coroner's Court, which is set to cast further scrutiny on England's second biggest fire and rescue service.
'The police are not taking any chances,' a source told The Telegraph. 'Someone has been spoken to about the incident. The profile which sent the messages was linked to him but the communication data indicates it was sent from outside the UK so it can't be proved it was within UK jurisdiction.'
Emails show officers confirmed a social media account was 'connected' to the person accused of making the threat but they could not prove the messages were sent from the UK.
The officer overseeing the inquest has spoken to the individual accused of making the threats asking them to cease contact.
'I have also raised the threat information at the court with a senior officer,' a detective added in an email to Mr Walker.
In January 2024, Mr Walker received a threat to life warning from West Midlands Police that stated they had information which suggests his personal safety was now in danger.
The letter said it could not disclose the source of the information but added: 'I have no reason to disbelieve the account as provided… Although West Midlands Police will take what steps it can to minimise the risk, the police cannot protect you from this threat on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour-basis.'
It is understood that two notes were found at Mr Brown's apartment after officers were sent round to check on his welfare.
One was understood to have addressed his partner while the other was written to West Midlands Police. He claimed he had been harassed and humiliated by Mr Walker, whom he had never met.
Mr Walker was arrested in April 2023 after Mr Brown claimed he had been sent abusive and harassing emails from an outlook address he believed was linked to Mr Walker.
In July 2023 Mr Walker, the owner of a fire safety consultancy business, was charged but the case was thrown out in April after the CPS offered no evidence, having decided to drop the case in February.
Police forensics admitted in December 2023 they could find no link between Mr Walker and the offending account but the case against him was not dropped for another 15 months.
Mr Walker has described it as a 'witch hunt' and claimed he was the 'fall guy'.
He said: 'All I did was to ask whether the fire authority had done their due diligence about the man they were appointing to lead the West Midlands Fire Service.
'It ended up with me losing my business, spending hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to clear my name.'
He added that he was given a warning that the police were aware of a credible threat to my life.
The West Midlands Fire Service and the authority which oversees it has seen a number of senior office holders coming unstuck over exaggerations to their CVs.
Last year it was revealed that Joanne Bowcock, who served as Mr Brown's deputy, claimed to have a law degree when she applied for a senior fire job. However the University of Liverpool said she had left after the first year.
Four months later, Labour councillor Greg Brackenridge, the chairman of the West Midlands Fire Authority, was forced to resign over claims he made about serving in the Marines 45 Commando. In fact, he had not completed the training.
Brackenridge, whose wife Sureena is Wolverhampton North East MP, was later reinstated to the Labour Party.
Mr Brown's replacement was Colonel Oliver Lee OBE, a real former marine, but after just six months he resigned stating that he had been 'threatened repeatedly, mainly to stay quiet on vital subjects in the public interest'.
He claimed the service's governance lacked 'courage, transparency, care and honesty' and wrote: 'West Midlands will now sadly continue as was when I inherited it: scared, cowed and not able to be itself.'
Mr Brown spent 27 years in the London Fire Brigade rising to the role of assistant commissioner, before joining the West Midlands Fire Service in November 2019 as deputy chief fire officer.
During his career, Mr Brown attended some of the country's most high-profile disasters including the Grenfell Tower fire and the 2005 London terrorist attacks.
West Midlands Police said it did not comment on police protection and it was aware of the allegations made by Mr Walker.
A spokesman for West Midlands Fire Service said Mr Brown was a longstanding member of the fire service and it continued to 'extend our deepest condolences to his friends and family'.
They added: 'We are making ourselves fully available to the coroner and the process, and while that process is ongoing, we are unable to comment further.
'The focus of West Midlands Fire Service remains on our crucial purpose of serving our community, protecting and supporting our staff and delivering a culture of excellence that is to be expected of our fire service.'