PC who changed report log after assault guilty of misconduct

PC Liam Simonet was in the Acapulco nightclub when he was thrown out by a bouncer

A police constable who reported he had been assaulted by a bouncer and then changed the police log has been found guilty of gross misconduct.

PC Liam Simonet was drunk when he was thrown out of a nightclub in Halifax before phoning 999 and claiming he had been punched in the face by door staff.

A West Yorkshire Police panel ruled he updated the log with false information to avoid the case being investigated.

PC Simonet was dismissed from the force following the hearing's conclusion.

He had admitted misconduct but his actions were deemed to be gross misconduct.

The hearing was told the 29-year-old PC, who was a tutor officer in Calderdale, was on a night out with colleagues in Halifax on 12 May last year and admitted being drunk towards the end of the evening.

He was in the Acapulco nightclub when he was involved in an "altercation" with a man who the officer said was offering him drugs.

PC Simonet claimed he had tried to detain the man, at which point a bouncer intervened and threw him out.

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CCTV provided to the panel showed he had not been punched by the door staff and the officer admitted his judgement had been impaired by drink when he told the 999 call handler he had been struck.

The hearing was told the officer accessed the police system while off duty the next morning and updated the log with "factually incorrect information", stating there was no CCTV from the club, when in fact there was.

His comments on the log included it was not "in the public interest to pursue" and asked for the job to be "tasked to me and I'll get rid of it".

'Felt embarrassed'

The officer, who joined West Yorkshire Police in 2019, said he made the changes to "avoid wasting police time" as he did not want to pursue his report of being a victim of assault.

However, panel chairman Karimulla Khan found that PC Simonet abused his position by accessing police records without a "legitimate policing purpose" and did so for his "own personal benefit" to stop the investigation being taken further.

He said: " The panel finds, on the balance of probabilities, that the officer very likely felt embarrassed or foolish by what he had earlier reported on the 999 call.

"He was probably anxious by what an investigation might reveal about his own conduct that night namely that he was extremely intoxicated."

PC Simonet was found to have breached West Yorkshire Police's professional standards in regard to confidentiality, honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct.