A police instructor ordered three female trainees to place their heads on a table and used bolt cutters to remove their earrings, a disciplinary hearing has been told.
PC Martin Briggs’ alleged treatment of the young women before a fitness test left one of them bleeding from her ears. All three feared they would lose their jobs if they did not comply.
Briggs was overseeing a “bleep test” running drill involving 63 recruits and insisted all jewellery be removed, it is claimed.
Three officers – PC Georgia Hedditch, PC Elizabeth Christie and PC Holly Law – told him they were physically unable to remove their stud earrings.
Hedditch jokingly suggested: “You’ll have to cut them out,” and Briggs allegedly left the sports hall at Dorset police headquarters and returned with a pair of bolt croppers.
He is said to have had them file one by one into an office next to the hall and told them to put their heads down on a jacket on a desk. Briggs is accused of “forcibly” cutting their earrings out.
The women said they thought if they were not allowed to do the test they would damage their career prospects but were “distressed and embarrassed” after the incident in April last year.
Briggs has said he made a “highly regrettable error of judgment” but denies behaving discreditably, arguing he removed the jewellery with the students’ consent.
Mark Ley-Morgan, a barrister representing Dorset police, said: “PC Briggs’ behaviour was described by witnesses as angry, abrupt, rude and impatient. He was swearing a lot.
“He insisted all jewellery must be removed before anyone did the test. He came back with bolt cutters and what looked like secateurs.
“Three very junior officers came into an office, putting their head on a table, having their earrings forcibly cut out. It is a serious incident which should never have happened and it is astonishing that it did.”
The hearing was told that although Briggs produced a pair of bolt cutters he may have used smaller “tin snips” to do the removals. But the officers believe bolt cutters were used on them.
Giving evidence, Hedditch said she had only been an officer for three weeks on the day of the fitness test.
She said she managed to remove most of her jewellery but had an earring which she could not get out. “He came back with a not particularly reputable looking pair of bolt cutters. I put my head on the desk … I heard the earring ping somewhere and walked out.”
Christie said: “When it was my turn to go in Martin Briggs was in the room he was holding these really long bolt cutters in his hands and was opening and closing them. He said: ‘Who’s next?’ I remember starring at them and thinking: ‘Shit; they are big.’ It was overwhelming. I was shaking with adrenaline and trying not to cry.”
The hearing continues.
