Police in WhatsApp chat guilty of gross misconduct

A number of police officers have been found guilty of gross misconduct for sending inappropriate messages in a work WhatsApp group.

A disciplinary hearing into six serving and former Dorset Police officers found four committed gross misconduct and two committed misconduct.

The decision was made by a panel at police headquarters, which had heard an officer posed with a sex toy found in a vulnerable person's home, while another used a derogatory term about two women.

The panel will reconvene on Friday to decide the outcome for all six officers.

They were part of a team created to tackle drug crime and communicated through a WhatsApp group in the summer of 2020.

The panel said serving officers Sgt Kennie Wilson and PC Katie Trent had both committed misconduct, adding they had been "remorseful" for their actions.

Sgt Wilson served as acting sergeant for the team for three months and told the panel he had "felt uncomfortable" after the image of the sex toy was sent.

He wrote a message explaining the chat was "for work related matters" before leaving the group.

However, panel chair, Assistant Chief Constable Neil Corrigan said Sgt Wilson "did not do enough" to challenge the behaviour.

He added: "He should have taken his concerns to senior managers, though the panel recognises how difficult this could be for him."

The hearing heard PC Trent had sent messages in the chat referring to members of the public commenting on a post from a police Facebook account as "fatties".

In another message to the group, she said: "He's probably 'disabled' too."

Giving evidence, PC Trent previously said: "I have no explanation for it, it's wholly inappropriate."

ACC Corrigan said: "She did not intend it to be discriminatory, which is why she wrote the word in inverted quotes.

"She was intending the opposite, meaning some people pretend to be disabled in order to play the system.

"The officer admitted to turning a blind eye to the inappropriate behaviour of the officers and says that she had become desensitised to the offensive language of others."

Serving officer PC Mark Philpotts, who sent a message referring to two members of the public as "one of the three Ps of Verwood", was found to have committed gross misconduct.

ACC Corrigan said PC Philpotts' behaviour "undermines the confidence of the police".

Former officers Sgt Timothy Borrill, PC Matthew Williamson and PC Daniel Moore were all found to have committed gross misconduct.

The hearing was previously told PC Williamson posed holding a sex toy, found in a vulnerable person's home, during a callout.

PC Moore later sent a message in the team WhatsApp asking for a copy of the photo to show his friends.

The three former officers all admitted gross misconduct and did not appear to give evidence during the hearing.

During his submissions to the panel, Mark Ley-Morgan, for Appropriate Authority, said: "Their behaviour was of another level to the three officers present."

The officer who took the photo and the officer who sent it in the WhatsApp group have not been named during the hearing due to ongoing criminal proceedings.

The messages first came to light in 2022 and the force referred the case to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in July 2022.

The IOPC held an independent investigation, which concluded in November 2023, and found the officers "have a case to answer for gross misconduct".

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