LIBERTY BAKER’s father has not decided if he will accept an invitation for a face-to-face apology from Thames Valley Police after he was wrongfully summonsed to court.

Paul Baker, 47, said he received the letter from Superintendent Kathleen Lowe, the Cherwell and West Oxfordshire commander, on Thursday. It came two days after Thames Valley Police admitted it was wrong to call Mr Baker to court to face charges of harassment against the parents of his daughter’s killer.

Speaking at Libfest, the memorial event to his daughter, he said: “I received the letter on Thursday. She was apologising for the summons, saying they shouldn’t have done it.

“I probably won’t meet her, but I’ll mull it over first. What I would really like is for them to admit that this could have been avoided if they had managed it better.”

Mr Baker received the summons six days after Robert Blackwell, 19, was jailed for four years for causing 14-year-old Liberty’s death by dangerous driving.

Mr Baker was due to appear in court last Monday, only for the case to be dropped.

In Mr Baker’s case the summons, which were issued in April, related to allegations of harassment between July 2014 and February this year.

But in cases of harassment, summons must be issued within six months of the date when the offence allegedly took place.

But police then found the incident in February 2015 could not be proven, and the most recent that could be was in October, outside of the six-month window to bring charges.

Mr Baker explained the situation had come about after he ended up speaking to Blackwell’s parents in Witney on several occasions.

He said: “We had some contact but it was just verbal – it wasn’t aggressive.

“If you’re grieving, you say the wrong things. You don’t think about what you say.”

He said he did not regret anything he had said, but wished that Thames Valley Police had warned him that he might bump into Blackwell’s family and prepared him for the scenario.

Thames Valley Police did not clarify whether the apology was for the legal blunder or because it was felt the force was morally wrong to pursue the case.

Spokesman James Williams added that the decision to issue the summons would be looked at on a local policing level and would not be investigated by its professional standards department.