A FORMER police commander will investigate the collapse of the two royal butler trials and the police team that drew up the cases.

The inquiry will be run by Bill Taylor, who retired last year as Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, and knows London policing intimately after rising through the ranks at Scotland Yard.

A former Commissioner of the City of London Police, he was once tipped as a possible Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Taylor will examine all the police files and interview the police team and their commanders about the cases. He is likely to concentrate on the talks held by police with the Prince of Wales and a series of meetings with courtiers in the months before the trials.

Mr Taylor will report directly to Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, on any lessons to be learnt. He is expected to file his report some time in the new year.

Glenn Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police branch of the Police Federation, said that claims that the two-year investigation was not good enough were “palpable nonsense”.

Officers had produced “compelling and persuasive evidence”, but could not have known that the Queen would intervene with dramatic new evidence which halted the Paul Burrell trial, he said.

Mr Smyth, whose organisation represents the detectives in the case, said that the police operation was “an investigation you can stand by”.

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