• 14.09.2026

Did the police drop the ball on Gerard Woodhouse?

Gerard Woodhouse at the L6 centre. Photo: Harry Shukman/The Post

Plus: the Letby inquiry, filthy streets, and a wild gaffe at Chester Zoo

Hello, readers — and welcome to your Monday edition. Before we delve into the tastiest news for the new week, have you had a chance to read Laurence’s latest? His weekend read about a local lord allowing a development firm to double the size of Knowsley Village has attracted some choice comments already:

“That image of the proposed housing [...] is especially grim, isn’t it? Looks like Khrushchyovka but with plants from B&Q.” — Jo

“What chance have current residents got as the big lorries arrive disrupting their way of life? Is nothing sacred outside their local church?” — Keith T

If you haven’t yet, here it is:

The big story: Did police drop the ball on Gerard Woodhouse?

Top line: This morning, the BBC has reported that Merseyside Police had fingerprint evidence connecting Gerard Woodhouse to a “poison pen” letter up to a year before he targeted another politician in an aggressive email campaign.

Context: Once upon a time, Woodhouse’s accolades for his charity work dominated the wall at his Liverpool 6 Community Association — a food union, launderette, youth club, pensioners’ group, baby bank, school uniform service on Queens Road. The hub’s benefactors included the royal Duchies of Lancaster and Westminster; its admirers local MPs Ian Byrne and Paula Barker, union giant Len McCluskey, and then city mayor Joe Anderson.

Now, that same (Woodhouse-free) hub is fearing for its future. This morning, the BBC reported that it has failed to secure ongoing National Lottery funding. Chief executive Shirley Marshall says that outreach projects for residents in sheltered accommodation would have to stop even while volunteers attempt to keep L6’s services open. "It's a lifeline for so many,” she says.

Woodhouse shows us inside a freezer in his charity centre in 2022. Photo: The Post

Long-time readers may remember former County councillor and anti-poverty campaigner Woodhouse from our 2022 article, in which we began to unpick some of his more outlandish claims. The following year, we broke the story that he had been investigated for financial irregularities. And last October, we were in the courtroom when Woodhouse pled guilty to harassment.

At that hearing, Liverpool Crown Court heard how Woodhouse sent cards in the post containing offensive terms to Christine Banks, ex-Lord Mayor and the chair of Liverpool City Council’s licensing committee. Despite Banks’s calls to jail him, Woodhouse ended up serving a community order.

Now the BBC say they have learned a prior police investigation yielded fingerprint evidence from a letter allegedly sent to a housing association boss.

In 2022, the police received a complaint from Julie Fadden, then chief executive of South Liverpool Homes. Fadden had received a card in the post that intimated her "time was coming", and included the phrase "tick-tock, tick-tock". She didn’t suspect Woodhouse at the time; however, after seeing a BBC investigation into him, she thought she recognised the handwriting on letters received by other Labour members. (Fadden also says she remembered that Woodhouse had once sent a text message to a colleague about Fadden’s charity abseil down CN Tower in Toronto, saying they should have “cut the rope”. South Liverpool Homes had withdrawn funding from one of his community projects, which Fadden thinks may have been the motivation.)

Gerard Woodhouse outside the L6 centre in 2022. Photo: The Post

Merseyside Police “told me they'd found a fingerprint on one of the letters," Fadden said. A spokesperson for the police confirms this: "In September 2022, fingerprint analysis confirmed identification of a suspect.”

The statement says they attempted to contact Fadden at the time, but closed the investigation after they couldn’t reach her. “They had my phone number,” Fadden tells the BBC.

In February, Merseyside Police re-opened their investigation and Woodhouse was later arrested and questioned. "However,” a letter from a Merseyside Police detective constable to Fadden reads, harassment “carries a statute of limitations of six months.” Therefore, the matter “was progressed with malicious communications” instead.

But, while the communications Fadden received were "offensive in nature", the "Police Decision Maker does not believe that they go beyond the limits of what is tolerable in society, aiming to shock, insult or degrade the victim". A spokesperson for the police has since said “the evidential threshold” for a charge of malicious communications “was not met”.

Bottom line: Woodhouse bombarded Banks with more than 100 offensive cards and letters, and the BBC found evidence to suggest she was far from the only person to receive offensive, anonymous letters from Woodhouse while he was a serving councillor. Fadden, now a Labour councillor herself for the Wavertree Garden Suburb ward, believes an opportunity to prosecute Woodhouse was missed — that he’d had been dealt with earlier, other suspected victims may have been spared his communications.

In the meantime, with or without Woodhouse, programmes like the L6 centre continue to struggle. Last month, singer-songwriter Jamie Webster visited the hub to stress its importance to the area. The community group has launched an online campaign to raise £6,000 for its running costs. If you wish to contribute, please click here for further details.

Your Post briefing:

The findings of the Thirlwall Inquiry — into how the murders Lucy Letby committed at the Countess of Chester Hospital could have been prevented — will be published on Tuesday 15 September, after nearly a year of delays. The inquiry was set up following Letby's conviction in August 2023 on seven counts of murder and seven of attempted murder, and proceeded on the basis that she is guilty.

As the hearings closed, former hospital executives applied to pause the inquiry until the Criminal Cases Review Commission finishes their review of Letby’s case. Sir David Davis MP — among the most high profile and dogged of Letby’s defenders — argued that an inquiry "predicated on the presumption that Lucy Letby's conviction is safe" would undermine its own conclusions "and potentially lead to more babies dying unnecessarily".

These requests were not met, as Lady Justice Thirlwall insisted that the inquiry’s focus was outside Letby’s actions — focusing on bereaved parent experiences, staff conduct, and NHS management structures. But, David Wilson, a professor of criminology and long-time Letby commentator and innocence campaign skeptic, told the BBC that the report will become "another component of the information war that's constantly being waged about her guilt or innocence."

The chair of the CCRC reviewing Letby’s conviction said she will be “looking at the report with interest”, though their findings will likely take years to surface. Cheshire Police’s investigations into corporate manslaughter and gross negligence involving other hospital staff continue.

Council leader cops to “dirty” city: Parts of Liverpool city centre haven’t enjoyed a good scrub in “more than a decade”, council leader Liam Robinson has admitted. Credit where it’s due: after locals, visitors and councillors raised questions about the city’s dirtiness over the summer, the Echo partook in some old fashioned “shoeleather” journalism and trawled the streets looking for grime. To save you a click, their key findings seem to be chewing gum, uncollected litter and pigeon guano. Robinson describes the cleanliness issue as a “constant battle.”

Liverpool’s former “friendliest homeless man” could become homeless once more: Brian Phillips, who once lived in a small alcove on Old Hall Street underneath the former Liverpool Echo building and was dubbed the city’s “friendliest homeless man” by that paper, has since 2018 resided in a two-bedroom apartment in Victoria Street. In recent years, he has been the public face of Mr Old Hall Street, an outreach programme looking to help rough sleepers in the city. Unfortunately, Phillips has found that his landlord and benefactor has allegedly gone bankrupt, and Phillips has now received an eviction notice with a deadline of tomorrow. “I have dedicated my life to helping the homeless,” Phillips tells The Post, and is now worried about becoming homeless himself once more. Anyone who may be able to help, please contact laurence@livpost.co.uk and we will pass your details onto the relevant person.

“Child predators” at Chester Zoo? At The Post, we understand the pitfalls of editorial mistakes. So it is with some sympathy that we report Chester Zoo accidentally advertising a "child predator tour" online to see its tigers and lions; the zoo also put “adult predator” tickets on sale for £30. "I hope this has been cleared by Cheshire Police - seems a bit dangerous,” said one online commentator. The zoo has blamed a “computer error” for the mishap, a spokesperson saying it was "due to our default naming convention in our system".

“Queen of Scotty Road” heads to television: We don’t normally do celebrity gossip, but the debut of Liverpool viral phenomenon and content creator Philip Regan on Celebrity Big Brother has resulted in many funny anecdotes doing the rounds on social media. Got any stories about the “Queen of Scotty Road” you’d like to share? Email us at editor@livpost.co.uk

How to spend your week

A few years ago, I (Laurence) attended a trio of short Samuel Beckett plays in Christ Church on Bessborough Road. It was a rare treat, in more ways than one: chances to see Beckett on stage are few and far between. This is partially because the Beckett estate are very particular about performances cleaving close to the late Irishman’s instructions; as such, many directors eschew his plays, disdaining their lack of creative freedom.

But that’s a problem for them — not the audience! So why not head along to Lieben, the University of Liverpool’s festival celebrating the playwright’s connections with Liverpool? Among other attractions, there’s a double bill of Play and Come and Go at the Playhouse, directed by none other than Adrian “Line of Duty” Dunbar. And if you’re not sure whether al this is for you, Beckett’s surreal Not I, starring his muse Billy Whitelaw, is also currently available on iPlayer — it’s only 15 minutes including the introduction, so give it a go.