Police officer sacked for trying to shut down investigation into 'embarrassing conduct'

PC Liam Simonet was dismissed for gross misconduct, following a disciplinary hearing earlier this month.

He phoned 999 in the early hours of Friday, May 13 last year, after he had been thrown out of Acapulco night club in Halifax, when he was off duty and drinking with colleagues.

The officer said he witnessed a drug deal in the nightclub and attempted to intervene, but he was then punched in the face three times and thrown down the stairs by a bouncer.

He later admitted he had not been attacked, but said he “genuinely felt this had happened” at the time he made the 999 call.

The misconduct panel, which conducted the disciplinary hearing, said PC Simonet “made a genuine mistake” and “this can be fairly attributed to his intoxicated state of mind, confusion and emotions running high at the time”.

But several hours after the incident, when he was still off duty, the officer posted an update in the force’s Storm Log which read: “No need for an appointment, I will sort this out myself.

"Unknown who the people are who are dealing, no CCTV and yes I am a victim of crime to an assault but no injuries, not in the public interest to pursue, please close the log.”

In a statement, PC Simonet said he updated the log because he “didn’t feel it appropriate for any allegations to remain against the security guard” due to his “poor recollection from the night before and lack of real injuries”.

He added: “I felt the most efficient way to effectively communicate my position and save wasting police time was to update the log as I did.”

However, the misconduct panel said the officer updated the log “in a way that sought to deliberately mislead by suggesting that reasonable lines of enquiry had either already been pursued, or there was no need to do so in order to shut down any investigation into his embarrassing conduct.”

It added: “By taking this course of action, rather than simply explaining truthfully that he had made some factual errors in his earlier report of the events due to his intoxication and confusion, he chose to knowingly make inaccurate and misleading written statements in the Storm log entry that were dishonest.”

The panel stated that PC Simonet was clearly “a well-respected and much valued officer by colleagues across different ranks”, but “only dismissal without notice is the appropriate outcome in this case to reflect the seriousness of the misconduct and to protect the public”.