Allegations of inappropriate conduct examined – Metropolitan Police Service, September 2020

Two police supervisors conducted an internal audit of the crime reports produced by a police officer within their force. This audit was carried out after concerns were raised by other supervisors about the standard of work produced by the officer.

These issues were escalated to the force’s Professional Standards Unit, who conducted an internal review of investigations that the officer was involved in. We later received a conduct referral from the force about the officer. The referral contained allegations that the officer had made false entries on policing systems and mishandled exhibits in investigations he was responsible for.

We decided to independently investigate the matter. We examined if the officer made false or misleading entries on policing systems, and whether they mishandled exhibits and evidence during investigations. We also analysed whether they adhered to policies and procedures about conducting investigations and closing reports.

Our investigators interviewed the officer under criminal caution. The officer provided five written responses to the allegations against them. Our investigators spoke to several witnesses, including members of the public and the officer’s colleagues and supervisors. We obtained and reviewed audits and information from policing systems and reviewed national and local policies and guidance.

We found failings in 15 investigations conducted by the officer. Thirteen of these investigations were investigated criminally, and two of the investigations were investigated as conduct matters. We found the officer had made false and misleading entries on police systems, and exhibits were frequently mishandled. There was evidence that the officer had attempted to pervert the course of justice in many cases.

We concluded the officer may have committed a criminal offence and behaved in a manner to justify disciplinary proceedings. We referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who decided to pursue criminal proceedings.

The CPS authorised charges against the officer for seven counts of misconduct in public office. The officer was found not guilty on all seven counts in March 2025.

We found that the officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct. We shared our report with the force, who agreed. We decided that disciplinary proceedings should be brought against the officer and that they should take the form of a gross misconduct hearing.

The officer was dismissed from the force during his probationary period. While we believe the officer still had a case to answer for gross misconduct, we did not believe it was in the public interest to pursue misconduct proceedings. The officer’s information will be added to the Police National Database and a submission made to prevent them re-joining the police force.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

We did not identify any organisational learning in this case.