Officer who accessed confidential files 'immature'
PC Oliver Platts was found to have viewed 221 reports "without policing purpose or lawful authority”
- Published
A police officer acted out of “poor judgement and immaturity” when he accessed confidential files, a gross misconduct hearing has concluded.
PC Oliver Platts, from Leicestershire Police, has been handed a final written warning for his behaviour.
He was found to have viewed 221 different reports on a police system "without policing purpose or lawful authority” over 10 separate days in June 2023.
PC Platts admitted to the breaches and told the panel overseeing the hearing it was “a case of misplaced enthusiasm on [his] behalf”.
Passion for the job
Leicestershire Police said most of the breaches had occurred while he was off-duty, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
He was found to have accessed the reports on the police Storm system, where incidents are logged and managed, while based at Loughborough station.
PC Platts accepted he had no “policing purpose” for viewing the files.
He told the panel he had done so “solely due to [his] passion for the job that [he] worked so hard to get to”.
Members of the panel agreed there was no “nefarious motive” behind his behaviour.
However, they also ruled the actions amounted to gross misconduct and breached expected standards around confidentiality, orders and instructions, and creditable conduct.
They deemed the reputational harm to Leicestershire Police arising from these incidents was “low”, and public confidence in the force would not be “shaken to any great or lasting degree by the facts of this case”.
Overall, they judged the seriousness of his actions as “medium”.
The panel concluded the public “would recognise that PC Platts had no malign intent and acted out of poor judgement and immaturity”.
Because of this, they felt a final written warning was more appropriate than dismissal, which will stay in place for four years.
Det Supt Alison Tompkins, head of the Professional Standards Department, said: “Any access to information held within force should only be made with a legitimate policing purpose.
"All officers and staff are provided with initial training in relation to the correct use of information and we continue to share messages in force about the importance of this."
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