Still in Humberside. On Sunday the outcomes of Humberside misconduct hearings held in 2019 against 9 officers were published.
Humberside Police officers sacked over 'deplorable behaviour' - BBC News
These relate to two sets of misconduct hearings, the first in January 2019 involving Superintendent Edward Cook, former Inspector Scott Snowden and an unnamed PC.
A police superintendent who secretly filmed female colleagues and members of the public for his own sexual gratification is among nine officers to be found guilty of gross misconduct. Humberside Police said Edward Cook and the other six officers had also exchanged inappropriate messages and videos via text and WhatsApp. (...)
Chief Constable Lee Freeman heard Mr Cook had used cannabis between 2003 and 2006, hired a prostitute in Cleethorpes in 2003 and, in May 2018, disclosed details of a "sensitive armed police operation to a journalist". He said Mr Cook had displayed a "complete lack of integrity [and] a complete lack of respect for females". (...)
The proceedings also involved Insp Scott Snowden who, the panel heard, had "engaged in inappropriate text conversations" with a colleague, which included "inappropriate" images and comments that were "misogynistic and suggestive of violence". Humberside Police ruled Mr Snowden should be dismissed without notice had he not resigned prior to the hearing.
A third officer involved in the proceedings, referred to a Former PC A, was also found to have "sent offensive videos to another member of Humberside Police whilst both on and off duty".
A second set of misconduct hearings held in June 2019 related to six other officers, who have not been named, who "exchanged wholly inappropriate offensive, sexist, racist, homophobic, misogynistic and/or anti-Semitic messages" via a WhatsApp group.
All six were found guilty of gross misconduct. Three of the officers were dismissed without notice, while one would have been dismissed had he not already resigned, the force said. Two of the officers received final written warnings as their messages were deemed to be not as persistent and targeted as some other messages in the group.
The full report of the misconduct proceedings
is here (PDF file). The reason the outcomes of these four year old hearings have only just been released is because Cook and Snowden were charged with offences under the Communications Act 2003, regarding the exchange of "indecent messages about women they had met while working".
Trial set for ex-Humberside Police officers charged over WhatsApp messages - Hull Live
Edward Cook and Scott Snowden
The case was moved to Leeds Crown Court where in December 2020 it was dismissed on a technicality.
Case dropped against top cops accused of sending offensive messages about women - Grimsby Live
The DPP appealed against this decision and in November 2022 the High Court overturned it and referred the case back to the magistrates court to start again (
Decision here - PDF)
The outcome of subsequent proceedings doesn't seem to have been reported but the
Humberside Police press release about the 2019 misconduct hearings says
The Misconduct cases, which concluded in 2019, had a related live criminal investigation against two former officers which prevented publication of the Misconduct hearing until now. Both were acquitted at Leeds Magistrates Court on Friday 23rd June 2023.
You may recall that it was Humberside Police who instituted reforms in 2019 to stop attending routine welfare checks, mental health incidents and missing persons cases. Similar reforms have been adopted by other forces, including the Met.
How Humberside police’s pioneering policy on mental health calls paid off - Guardian
Humberside's Chief Constable explained that this was because of the amount of time such calls took up and the pressure this put them under.
The effects of these pressures on police resources were illustrated in 2017, when Superintendent Edward Cook took time out of his busy schedule, filming "female colleagues and members of the public for his own sexual gratification", to post pictures of police attending Hull Fair to social media. These included shots of eighteen officers, including another Superintendent, riding the dodgems.
and two helping out at a donut stall.
Well earned fun or unprofessional? Police pictured riding dodgems at fair while on duty - Mirror Online (Oct 2017)
Have things improved in Humberside since these misconduct hearings in 2019? Well not so you'd notice. There are the cases in my previous post. And in March this year Sky News broadcast an interview with two women in Humberside, a serving female officer and a woman who had reported being groomed and raped.
One officer tells Sky News she was "ostracised" by colleagues after reporting a senior officer who seduced her into a controlling relationship. She also claims an officer would sift through victims' statements to find women he could ask out and says misogyny is a "monster" at the force.
New police misogyny claims: Serving Humberside officer says problem at her force is a 'monster' - Sky News (March 2023)
www.lbc.co.uk
www.theguardian.com
