Amid news that only one in every hundred complaints against police officers have resulted in proceedings, we look at some recent misconduct cases that did lead to punitive action.
Adnan Arib
The Metropolitan police officer was jailed for two years in March after being found to have used his position to try to initiate sexual relationships with two vulnerable teenagers.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was called to investigate Arib when he contacted the girls after meeting them while on duty. Using an unregistered phone, he invited them out, telling one of the girls that she was “very pretty”.
Arib pleaded not guilty and claimed that he had only got in touch with the children to offer them “career advice”, but this claim was rejected by the jury.
Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis
The two Met officers were jailed for two years for taking and sharing photos of sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry after they were murdered. Jaffer, 47, and Lewis, 33, were ordered to guard the scene in a London park where the sisters were found murdered in June 2020. During a criminal trial, it was heard that they took photos, some showing the bodies, and shared them in two WhatsApp groups, calling the victims “dead birds”. The two officers pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office.
Simon Hawxwell
The former officer of Hampshire constabulary was found guilty of gross misconduct in 2021 after choking a fellow female officer.
Hawxwell, who had been with the force for 18 years, also left his younger co-worker “fearful that she would be sliced” when he held scissors to her cheek in the office. He aimed highly sexualised insults at her, and asked her if she liked to be choked during sex.
Hawxwell, who denied gross misconduct, said the incidents were “jokes” and that he would often “use humour to alleviate the stress and pressures of work”.
Darren Thorn
The Wiltshire police officer was sacked in December after forming an inappropriate sexual relationship with a vulnerable woman who he met on duty. Thorn, who worked as a response officer in Swindon, was dismissed with immediate effect following a public gross misconduct hearing, the force said.
The two-day hearing found Thorn guilty on six counts of gross misconduct. They included illegally accessing police computer systems to obtain personal information about members of the public and passing it on to the woman. The offences were committed between June 2016 and June 2018.
Thorn admitted four criminal charges connected to the relationship during a hearing at Reading crown court on 29 November last year. He pleaded guilty to one charge of corruption, two charges of computer misuse, and one charge of misconduct in a public office.
