AN investigation into how a rapist police officer avoided detection for years is complete and could be published soon, The Northern Echo has learned.

Cleveland Police officer Wayne Scott, who joined the force in 2002, was jailed for 19 years in 2013 for rapes and a sexual assault on a child while off-duty.

The force referred itself to police watchdog the IPCC, after it emerged that it was aware of some allegations about the sexual predator up to four years before he was convicted.

An investigation has - controversially - been carried out by one of Cleveland Police's own officers, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter McPhillips, before being rubber stamped by the IPCC earlier this year.

Cleveland now has the report and is now redacting parts of it to protect the identity of Scott's victims, before it is published.

A spokeswoman said: "We will also be speaking to those who are named in the report and have the sensitive task of speaking with victims about the report before it is published. We do not have timescales of how long this process will take."

One of the officers involved in the original investigation into Scott retired two months ago but it is understood he has not been implicated of any negligence in the report.

One source accused Cleveland of "trying to kick the issues into the long grass" by taking so long to publish the report, but the force strenuously denied the allegation.

Deputy Chief Constable Iain Spittal said: “I made a commitment to publish the report, and will stress again that the report will be published.

“Let me stress that this report contains details of victims of sexual offences and some information which would lead to identifying them should it be published as it stands. As an organisation we have let victims down in our handling of Wayne Scott, and to publish this report without following meticulous processes to ensure their anonymity would be to let them down again – it is not something I am prepared to do.

“The investigation has been supervised by the IPCC from the start, and they are content with the process that has been undertaken.”

The force came under fire from its own police federation last year, which said the investigation should be carried out independently.

However, a spokeswoman defended the decision to carry it out internally and said: "Peter McPhillips is a highly respected detective and the force strongly refutes any claims made by individuals which question, or seem to question, the integrity of Peter McPhilips in carrying out some of the work for the supervised IPCC investigation."

She said that "for transparency and independence" Cleveland Police had specialist officers from a different force scrutinise parts of the investigation, including where there had been complaints involving the professional standards department.