A trainee police officer doctored a Covid-19 test using a red pen in a bid to get time off work. Ahmed Anwari drew an extra line on his test to make it look like a positive result.
He hoped the fake result would allow him to isolate at home in line with the rules at the time. However, suspicions were raised as a result of the unconvincing job he’d done, Lancashire Live reports.
The Lancashire officer was asked to complete another test on a Microsoft Teams video call but again failed to convince that the result was positive. Mr Anwari, whose badge number was 2568, resigned from his role with Lancashire Constabulary the following day but misconduct proceedings were launched regardless of this.
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At a public hearing at Ormskirk Police Station on Monday (June 20), Chief Constable Chris Rowley ruled that Mr Anwari would have been sacked had he not already quit. Mr Anwari has also been barred from working with any police force again.
The hearing heard that the trainee officer informed his line manager of a positive result on December 13, 2020, and sent a photograph of the test as evidence. However, the hearing heard that “it was clear that test had been manually altered with a drawn red line”.
He was invited to take another test on a video call with Inspector Dixon and attempted to claim that the second test was also positive. However, during the call, he admitted to the inspector that it was actually negative and that he’d been hoping to take time off work.
Mr Anwari was informed of the proceedings but wrote to the panel to inform them that he would not attend or send representation. In a brief hearing, Ch Con Rowley said that the failure to respond was taken as acceptance of the allegations of gross misconduct.
He went on to say that policing standards must be upheld in order to maintain the confidence and trust of the public. He ruled that the accusations of gross misconduct were proved and that had Mr Anwari not already resigned, the appropriate sanction would have been dismissal.
Read more of today's top stories from the Manchester Evening News here.
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