Wayne Brown, the UK’s first black fire chief, repeatedly lied about having a degree days before he took his own life, a leaked report has revealed.
The suggestion that Brown was fraudulently claiming to have an MBA from a London university was reported to the West Midlands Fire Authority at the beginning of this year.
Eight days later on 24 January Brown was found dead at his home in Birmingham.
A briefing document prepared by the Labour-controlled fire authority in February confirms that the 54-year-old took his own life.
More importantly, it refers to private and “informal” contact between the chair of the regulator, the monitoring officer and Brown just before his death.
The details will become highly relevant when the inquest re-opens in June.
Here’s what has been kept from the public.