A married Met Police officer with two children made more than 100 texts, calls and voicemails to an ‘upset’ colleague, where he called her a ‘sl*g’, ‘wh*re’, and a ‘c**t’. A misconduct panel hearing, chaired by Commander Peter Stevens, found the disgraced Sergeant – know only as Officer X – to have behaved so poorly that he was fired for gross misconduct.
Officer X sent scores of ‘unwanted’ and ‘derogatory’ messages to his victim, Ms A, calling her foul and abusive names the day she was going on a date, on November 21, 2021, having told him about it the day before. Officer X claimed his outburst was down to the fact he heard an incoming call about a critically ill baby which he found distressing, and this was about three or four days before the events.
He thought nothing about this call for a couple of days but then it ‘triggered memories and flashbacks’ to the event in 2010 which saw him given time off work. He would have contacted his wife but she was with her dad in a Brighton hospital where he was seriously ill and dying.
Officer X also threatened to go to her dad’s house. She said that she would report his behaviour at work, and that she would tell his wife. In his evidence, Officer X said he and Ms A had a good relationship ‘like brother and sister with nothing romantic’, which the panel accepted.
It also accepted that his attempted contact with Ms A was not out of jealousy but from his crisis. But despite this it was found that the volume and the content of his messages were ‘completely unacceptable’.
On November 26 2021, after Ms A had reported Officer X, he was arrested and interviewed under caution, but on advice from his lawyer refused to provide his PIN number.
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