Investigation into conduct of senior officer – Humberside Police, June 2024

Three senior police officers at Humberside Police complained to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) for Humberside about the conduct of their Chief Constable.

The officers reported that the Chief Constable had made discriminatory, offensive and inappropriate comments to colleagues and stakeholders, relayed stories of behaviour in his policing career which was not in keeping with the standards of professional behaviour expected of an officer, abused his position to inappropriately use police resources, behaved inappropriately and unprofessionally, and unnecessarily delayed misconduct proceedings.

We received a referral from the OPCC for Humberside in June 2024 about the Chief Constable’s conduct and decided to independently investigate the matter.

We examined allegations surrounding the Chief Constable’s actions, behaviour and language, and whether these were in line with policies, guidance and legislation. We also investigated allegations of inappropriate behaviour, bullying and mistreatment, misuse of police resources for personal gain, whether they used discriminatory or derogatory language, and if they delayed misconduct proceedings and were dishonest in conversations with the Police Federation.

We also received further whistleblower reports with allegations of misconduct which we considered within our investigation.

Our investigators reviewed evidence from the senior police officers who acted as whistleblowers, police officers, members of the public, members of the Chief Constable’s private office, and police stakeholders. We obtained statements from police witnesses and stakeholders which detailed their first-hand experience of the officer’s conduct, as well as accounts they had heard from colleagues. We interviewed a number of witnesses, and reviewed legislation, policies, procedures and guidelines. There was little physical, independent documentary evidence available, such as video footage, notes or records.

The Chief Constable retired in July 2024, although they did provide a written response for our investigation in February 2025. They denied all allegations.

We considered whether the Chief Constable had a case to answer for gross misconduct, i.e. whether there was any evidence that their actions were so serious, that they would have been dismissed had they still been serving.

We concluded there was no indication that the Chief Constable committed a criminal offence and that there was no case to answer for gross misconduct.

We did find some evidence of comments and behaviour that were not in line with that expected of a senior officer. However, some witnesses told us they believed his behaviour was unintentional in some cases and not done with harmful intent.

There was insufficient evidence to suggest that the Chief Constable misused police resources for personal gain, attempted to deliberately delay misconduct proceedings, or were dishonest with the Police Federation about it.

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 found that some of the Chief Constable’s behaviours were not escalated to the appropriate authority in a timely manner, and officers were not aware of who to direct their report to if they had concerns about the conduct of their Chief Constable.

We recommended that officers are made aware of who the appropriate authority is for matters about the Chief Constable, and that clear reporting lines are provided for anyone wishing to raise concerns. We are currently in the process of taking this recommendation forward.