PC guilty of gross misconduct over colleague shower filming

The incident took place at Gloucestershire Constabulary's headquarters

A police officer accused of trying to film a female colleague in the shower has been found guilty of gross misconduct.

Assistant Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Police, Rhiannon Kirk, said the behaviour of Jonathan Eaton was "abhorrent and utterly at odds with everything we stand for".

A panel said had Mr Eaton not already resigned, he would have been sacked.

Mr Eaton, 33, was acquitted of voyeurism in April last year.

A two-day tribunal hearing, which concluded on Tuesday, found that the actions of Mr Eaton, from Brockworth, Gloucester, amounted to gross misconduct.

'Breached police standards'

ACC Kirk added: "My admiration and thoughts are with our female colleague involved in the case, who has shown great courage and strength throughout this process - and we thank her for her commitment to seeing the case through."

Presiding counsel Gerard Boyle QC told the hearing that Mr Eaton had breached police standards of professional behaviour, honesty and integrity and failed to perform his duties consciously and diligently.

The charges were denied by Mr Eaton.

Jonathan Eaton was cleared at Newport Crown Court of the allegation that he tried to film a female colleague in the shower

Mr Boyle said the incident occurred in the unisex changing rooms of Gloucestershire Constabulary's headquarters in Quedgeley when a woman employee was in the shower.

She told the hearing that as she was drying herself off, she noticed a phone poking out from the gap at the bottom of the partition to the next door cubicle.

In a statement, she said: "I immediately thought that somebody was taking pictures of me.

"I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me. I then heard movement of somebody scurrying away from the adjacent cubicle."

She added: "I flew out of the cubicle and went straight up to the man, who I now know as (Mr) Eaton, and challenged him about putting the phone under the partition."

Mr Boyle explained that Mr Eaton went home a short time later after telling his supervisor that he was "unwell".

The former officer later performed a factory reset on his phone and manually deleted some of the web browsing history on his tablet, the tribunal heard.

Mr Eaton resigned from the force three days before the hearing began.

He had been suspended from duties since his arrest on 27 February 2019 and did not take any active part in proceedings.

The hearing was held after he was acquitted last year at Newport Crown Court of attempting to observe and record for sexual gratification a person involved in a private act without consent.