VANCOUVER — The public inquiry into the Robert Pickton case has heard the Vancouver police investigation into missing sex workers was stalled by a massive failure of leadership among the force's top brass.

An outside report prepared by Jennifer Evans, the deputy chief of Ontario's Peel Regional Police, says the failures extended all the way to the chief of the Vancouver police.

Evans singles out a list of officers in the force's senior management in the late 1990s, and she says no one took ownership of the missing women investigation.

In fact, Evans says then-chief Bruce Chambers was shocked when an investigator gave a public presentation outlining the work that had gone into the case, suggesting Chambers wasn't paying attention to the investigation.

When the head of the force's major crimes unit disbanded a working group that had floated the serial killer theory, Evans says other members of senior management "washed their hands" of the issue and didn't object.

Vancouver's Deputy Chief Doug LePard says he agrees with most of Evans' report, and he agrees that management didn't take the missing women case seriously and ensure it had enough resources.