Police officer Hugh Turton repeatedly verbally abused female colleague
- Published
PC Hugh Turton verbally abused his female colleague on a work night out in Leicester
A police officer who repeatedly called a female colleague "little slag" on a work night out breached standards of professional behaviour, a misconduct hearing has found.
PC Hugh Turton also damaged a restaurant window by punching it, then used the police computer system to check if the crime had been reported.
He resigned from Leicestershire Police before the hearing took place.
The force said he would have been dismissed if he had not already left.
Det Supt Rich Ward, from the force's Professional Standards Department, said: "The public and force rightly expect the highest standards of professional behaviour from all of our officers both on and off-duty.
"An accelerated misconduct hearing found that the former officer's actions while out socialising and then when accessing a police system the next day breached these standards which are expected.
"It was determined that this amounted to gross misconduct and that had the officer still been in service, he would have been dismissed without notice.
"This behaviour demonstrated by the former officer fell far below the high standards expected and will not be tolerated."
PC Hugh Turton resigned from Leicestershire Police
PC Turton had been socialising with some of his colleagues in Leicester city centre on 6 December 2022.
He began behaving "in a confrontational and verbally aggressive way", according to the outcome of the misconduct hearing, external.
The group left the bar as a result, but PC Turton apparently "lagged behind" and was shouting in the street.
His female colleague then went to help him, but he "shouted at her, calling her 'little slag', repeatedly".
PC Turton then approached a restaurant and punched the window, causing damage.
Breach of policy
At 06:05 GMT the next morning he then logged on to his police laptop, despite being on rest days.
He opened a programme and this showed a police incident had been created for the damaged window.
He later agreed to receive a conditional caution for damaging the window, provided he paid for its repair.
His conduct was found to amount to gross misconduct for the following reasons:
The abuse of his colleague was seriously inappropriate
The damage to the window amounted to a criminal offence
The misuse of computer systems was a serious breach of policy
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