Vile Whatsapp group messages have been revealed after an investigation into misconduct concluded in the firing of five Cornish firefighters. Their messages within at least two work group chats contained perverted and offensive content including images of women’s breasts and vaginas.
Racist, sexist and other offensive language were used in these groups which had been set up by crews at Lostwithiel fire station, Cornwall. An 18-month-long investigation was carried out by Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service and led to the eventual sacking of five of these firefighters.
CornwallLive reports a misconduct inquiry was launched in late 2020 after a junior member of the team was targeted by a small group of more senior firefighters. They consistently put down and insulted the part-time fireman as well as criticising the quality of his work and making explicit comments about his partner.
The now-sacked firefighters called him a “lazy c**t” and other expletives for not spending more time at the station to check equipment even if it meant "coming late after work like everyone else". The junior firefighter was not fully trained yet and was on the retained staff who are part time and on-call workers and often have unrelated full-time jobs too.
His partner at the time told CornwallLive: "My partner was happy to be on-call as a firefighter. It was the checks he struggled to juggle with and it put him in a difficult position as he was not supposed to do them alone. He ended up doing them very late at night and alone."
All checks were supposed to be completed with another assigned member of staff as the junior staff member was not qualified to do them on his own. Instead, he was forced to choose between not checking the breathing apparatus sets or doing them alone as one of his mentors was also one of his bullies.
Around 40 screengrabs of a work Whatsapp group were shared with CornwallLive detailing the bullying and explicit messages, which included seniors snapping at the junior fireman. One of the bullies told him: “Go down in the evening like everyone else has to do with a normal job, on your head if that equipment fails on one of your crew.”
Pictures of the junior staff member and his family were posted and made fun of in the Whatsapp chats, which were intended to be used for organisation and general notices. However, it did not stop at this level of bullying, which some firefighters have defended as “gallows humour” to keep them sane in the face of the job.
It was the pornography and inciting a junior firefighter to commit a sexual offence which spurred the investigation and resulted in the sacking of the five firefighters. Several appeals and an employment tribunal all upheld Cornwall Council’s decision to dismiss them for misconduct.
The junior firefighter’s now ex decided to blow the whistle on the chats and then discovered she herself had been discussed in them in a derogatory manner. One member of staff gloated that he had her number and taunted that he would start “sexting” her, posting a picture in the chat of a form she had filled out for a Covid community aid event containing personal details.
CornwallLive said: “The messages involved graphic and disturbing sexual content including explicit images showing women’s vaginas, breasts and a rather disconcerting photograph of someone’s unnaturally dilated anus and another of an Eiffel Tower-shaped sex toy, which the firefighters involved exchange in messages, asking their colleague victim to purchase and use on his partner or himself.”
The group also began asking the junior team member to take intimate photos of his partner and share them with the group. He never complied and the chat was shut down by another party.
This firefighter reminded everyone to tone it down and said: “It has been decided that this group chat will be ended. We feel it is not always used for what it was meant to be used for and some comments, although may be meant as a joke, could be deemed as offensive and personal, which could result in problems for us all.”
However, a secondary replacement chat was then set up and the inappropriate behaviour continued. Some of the sacked firefighters deleted or left the chat but the messages remained visible for months.
Separate to the bullying and sexual content, another firefighter used racial slurs in the chat, saying that he's tired "having run like a n***er" the previous night. He apologised to the group later and acknowledged that it is "unacceptable in this day and age".
A colleague replied that he did not need to apologise as "hopefully the whole station knows it was lighthearted. #Cornish #n***er". Another firefighter asked for the posts to be deleted as they are "inappropriate and offensive", it is unknown if they were then removed.
The whistle-blower said: “The firefighters who were sacked are not the victims. They’ve done enough ranting and raving on social media and even threatened me with legal action too. I’m sick of them saying it was a personal private group between friends when it wasn’t.”
She added that fire chief Kathryn Billing and the fire service have apologised to her and her ex for what happened. At the time the investigation was concluded, Cornwall Council said it had found that the firefighters’ behaviour had fallen far below the standards expected from staff.
Ms Billing said at the time: “Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service is honoured to enjoy the respect of our public, and I am determined to ensure that we never do anything to jeopardise that hard-earned and privileged position. I do not take the use of such sanctions lightly, but the standards shown in this case were so far below those we expect, there was no choice but to take this action.
“Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service cannot and will not condone inappropriate behaviour and will always take reports of these incidents seriously.” The service has not confirmed whether the bullying or the inappropriate messages were the sole reason for the dismissal of the five firefighters.
Two of the sacked firefighters hand delivered letters of apology to the woman’s home, which concerned her as she had not given out her address knowingly at any point. She has been asked to be left alone by the firefighters in future so the remaining three have not delivered letters, although it is unknown if they ever intended to.
One of the firemen said he could now see how his comments “may have caused unnecessary anguish” to the woman and her partner. He added: "This was never the intention as the comments were meant as banter/fun between my colleague and I was only seeing laughing emojis returned at the time which I thought was fine."
The other letter read: "I am writing to you to sincerely apologise for any harm that I have caused you through my actions. Following my suspension from my role as a firefighter at Lostwithiel fire station I have been taking part in discipline procedures regarding allegations of bullying and harassment by myself.
"As part of this process I have been presented with images and notes containing the words and phrases I used. This has prompted in me a period of deep personal reflection and I would like to assure you of my shame at the actions I took and my regret at the pain that I now understand was caused to you. My intentions were never malicious or aggressive and I believed at the time were innocent.
"However I now know otherwise and I take full responsibility for any distress caused to you and my colleague. I hope that you may find forgiveness for me and can be reassured that I have grown and learnt from my mistakes."
The fireman's ex said she was not impressed with the behaviour and did not believe the apologies to be sincere. She said: "Just to be more clear it took the firefighters several months to apologise to me via those two letters and it only happened when they realised what situation they got themselves in and once their union was involved.
"I don’t believe for one minute this was a sincere apology and they were actually sent because the union advised them to. I think they were hoping this would soften their punishment. I got one letter and another the next day. We know they are not apologetic because I’ve had to get the police to call on one of them since the letters and they have continued their nasty behaviour via Facebook comments on some of CornwallLive stories."
Her ex, who suffered the bullying, has not spoken about the ordeal publicly and was not involved in the articles written. The whistle-blower added: "These were just bad apples and I think it's important that fire chief Kathryn Billing is supported in her decision to get rid of them.
“It makes me sad that this went on for so long and the way my ex partner and I were treated. But the way they have acted over the past few months and how they behaved on social media makes me think they have shown no remorse at all. But it is also important to remind people that as a whole Cornwall Fire Service and its staff are great and do an amazing job."
