A man who complained about the way West Yorkshire Police handled his claims that his father was murdered by a nurse at Airedale Hospital has won an apology and had his appeal upheld by the police watchdog.

Artist and architect John Craven, 61, of Oxenhope, near Keighley, last year made a complaint against former West Yorkshire Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison about the way his allegations were handled, but the then Police Authority decided not to formally record the matter.

Now, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has upheld Mr Craven’s appeal against the police authority’s decision.

The IPCC says his complaint was required to be recorded and the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office should now progress the case.

Mr Craven’s father, Frederick Craven, a former footballer who played for Bradford Park Avenue and Coventry City, died at the hospital in Steeton, aged 81, of septicaemia and pneumonia, in November 2001.

His death was investigated by police as part of their inquiries into nurse Anne Grigg-Booth, who was charged with the murders of three patients but died of an accidental drugs overdose aged 52 in 2005 before she went on trial.

Three years ago police informed him the death had been incorrectly recorded as a crime and should have been withdrawn from the inquiry as nothing untoward had been found about his care in hospital.

Mr Craven, however, still maintains his father was the victim of foul play.

He said: “I have fought for ten years to prove that my father was murdered and it was covered up, and I remain convinced of that.

“It has cost me about £170,000, not to mention the stress I have suffered in all that time.

“I am extremely pleased that the IPCC has upheld my appeal, but I fear it will just be another false horizon. I have not heard from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office within the 28 days I was given. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that the truth will come out.”

In a letter from a casework manager, the IPCC apologises to Mr Craven for the way his appeal had been dealt with, and says the police authority did not inform him of his right to appeal.

The IPCC said a decision in January by the Office of the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson, not to record his complaint against Sir Norman, was now void.

Mr Craven said he had now written back to the IPCC, asking for the police to be prosecuted, under the 2008 Police Reform Act, for perverting the course of justice.

His Bradford solicitor, Nick Peterken, said he was encouraged that the IPCC had upheld his client’s appeal and he was now pressing West Yorkshire Police to provide him with full details of its inquiry into Frederick Craven’s death.

Mr Peterken said: “West Yorkshire Police will now have to look into this. We are asking that the police provide all the evidence that they considered during the course of their inquiry.”

A spokesman for the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner said: “The Police and Crime Commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson, has made a decision on this matter which will be communicated to Mr Craven in full in writing and has been shared with his solicitor “His complaint will be formally recorded, but the allegations he is making happened before Sir Norman Bettison was in post as Chief Constable of West Yorkshire in 2007 and no link has been made between this individual and this case. There is nothing that Mr Craven has given us that would lead us to investigate.”