Detective who asked colleague to alter statement sacked

Det Sgt Imran Rafiq had nearly 20 years of service with Nottinghamshire Police

A detective has been sacked for asking a junior colleague to secretly add comments to a witness statement during a murder investigation.

Det Sgt Imran Rafiq was part of the police inquiry into the killing of Pauline Quinn, who was battered to death in her Nottinghamshire home in November 2021.

After one witness statement was taken, Det Sgt Rafiq told a colleague to fill in an incomplete sentence with the words she thought the witness had said, and "not to tell anyone", a gross misconduct hearing was told.

Nottinghamshire Police said on Thursday his actions amounted to gross misconduct and he was dismissed without notice.

Pauline Quinn, 73, from Worksop, was killed by her neighbour

Lawrence Bierton, 62, murdered Mrs Quinn 18 months after being released for the second time while on licence for killing Elsie Gregory, 73, and Aileen Dudill, 79, at their home in Rotherham.

Bierton was found guilty of Mrs Quinn's murder and sentenced to a whole-life order at Nottingham Crown Court in December.

The witness statement taken by Det Sgt Rafiq's less experienced colleague was never submitted as evidence, as the witness declined to provide a second statement when approached again in December 2022.

The misconduct hearing was told the missing wording in the statement was highlighted by the murder investigation team.

Det Sgt Rafiq was then said to have told the graduate investigator to “fill it in" with the words she thought the witness had said and “not to tell anyone”.

The statement was resubmitted to the investigation team, with Det Sgt Rafiq explaining the error by saying "we pressed undo by accident and found the bit we lost”.

Lawrence Bierton was found guilty of murdering Mrs Quinn after a two-week trial

The officer later claimed the instruction to secretly fill in the gaps in the statement from memory was a joke that "had gone terribly wrong", and that he'd been trying to involve his junior colleague in "some banter".

He was accused at the hearing, which ran from Monday to Thursday, of "cutting corners" by encouraging his colleague to "manipulate" the statement.

Emails containing both the incomplete and altered witness statements were also found to have been deleted about three weeks after the incident.

The graduate investigator, who at the misconduct hearing rejected the idea it was a joke, was so concerned she informed senior colleagues.

The misconduct hearing was also told the graduate investigator had concerns about language used by Det Sgt Rafiq in connection with a separate investigation.

While discussing the murder of another woman, he was said to have told his colleague: "Let this be a life lesson to you, don’t go sleeping around."

Det Sgt Rafiq denied having any recollection of saying those words, and claimed, if he had said anything along those lines, she may have "got the wrong end of the stick".

Nottinghamshire Police’s professional standards directorate (PSD) carried out an investigation into both matters.

The gross misconduct hearing considered alleged breaches of standards of professional behaviour around honesty and integrity, authority, respect and courtesy, plus discreditable conduct.

'Inappropriate and misogynistic'

Chief Constable Kate Meynell said: “The people of Nottinghamshire are entitled to expect far better conduct from their police officers.

“His decision to encourage a junior colleague to manipulate a witness statement was totally unacceptable.

“In doing what he did as the more senior detective in this case, he put a graduate investigator with less experience in a difficult position.

“Thankfully, they did the right thing and reported it to the senior investigation team.

“This misconduct hearing also heard he used inappropriate and misogynistic language to colleagues while discussing an incident where another woman was murdered, which was abhorrent and not what I'd expect from any officer."

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