Police officer said ‘carry a knife’ as dating advice on WhatsApp group, misconduct hearing told

A police officer gave a colleague dating advice of "just carry a knife, it works every time" on a vile WhatsApp group, a disciplinary hearing was told.

Group members mocked Holocaust victims and gay people, said a mixed race officer looked as if he was "covered in marmite" and west London "might as well be part of Pakistan".

Six officers have been accused of gross misconduct and face being booted off the force.

Two of them, former constables Jonathon Cobban and Joel Borders were jailed for 12 weeks for sharing messages - but are appealing their sentences.

Four other officers, all formerly of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, were members of the group: William Neville, who was acquitted of criminally sending grossly offensive messages, Matthew Forster, Daniel Comfort and one officer that can only be named as PC A.

All officers except PC A have been accused of gross misconduct in sending and receiving inappropriate and/or offensive messages, failing to challenge or report such messages and failing to leave the group despite knowing such messages were sent.

Another accused officer from the Metropolitan police, Gary Bailey gave evidence to the hearing today (Tuesday, November 29).

In a discussion of how to attract “young, hot foreign girls”, where Bailey used the word “groom”, Bailey’s colleague, Jonathan Cobban said: “Drugs and the threat of Brexit.”

To which Bailey replied: “Take ‘em for some prawn balls and you are in” as a reference to a meal the group had with a female colleague of Greek origin.

Bailey admitted seeing Cobban’s message but denied that it amounts to misconduct and said: “I do not see how it is racist.”

He also denied that he was being discriminatory when he described women as “fanny”, saying: “It is inappropriate, not discriminatory.”

Despite sending a message 20 seconds later he denied seeing that Cobban had written, in reference to women: “Ha-ha, just carry a knife it works every time, I think it’s the glint.”

He also said he had never seen messages relating to a mixed-race colleague that called him a “fat c***” and “Jonah Hill covered in Marmite” but accepted they were racist and said he would have reported them if he had seen them.

Borders had also complained: “No one speaks a f***ing word of English in Hounslow.” And Neville had written: “West London might as well be part of Pakistan.”

The officers also joked about the Holocaust and its victims, saying: “The Nazis were coming all over them.”

During his active time in the group, Bailey was training to be a Met officer and had sent 30 messages and he said that if he had seen offensive messages by others he would have challenged them.

At a misconduct hearing he said he would see notifications but did not routinely monitor the texts, adding: “In the mornings, in lessons, I would not have access to my phone and my priority was getting through Hendon so I did not have time to be looking through messages.”

He also denied any knowledge of the content before joining and said he had joined to get information on how to become a firearms officer, something other members also wanted.

Speaking to the tribunal’s panel, James Berry, representing the police, said: “There is no technical way of establishing what messages PC Bailey read. Therefore, you will have to assess the evidence on the balance of probabilities.

“We know that PC Bailey joined the WhatsApp group for an important purpose – to get information from officers that had been through the training he was going through and with colleagues who had the same interest in moving on as quickly as possible to an armed unit.

“When he contributed on seven occasions his messages did not come out of the blue. He must have read at least some of the discussion in order to send the messages he sent on those occasions.

“It is not credible that he was lucky enough to have missed the messages that were offensive. There are over 100 of them spread over multiple dates.”

Nick Yeo, representing Bailey, said: “The sheer number of messages being sent between them being one from the officer tends to support his case that he paid no attention to the messages… otherwise you might think he would have joined in with an emoji or a joke.”

He added: “There is no one single emoji or message which makes direct reference to an inappropriate message which has just been sent and no one reference in any message by PC Bailey which makes reference to an inappropriate message by another.

“The officer has accepted that the messages were inappropriate and the message he failed to challenge, related to drugs and Brexit, should have been challenged but that is not the same as a breach in professional standards.

“They were all private messages which were not intended to cause offence to any one individual or group and it is quite plain that no offence was caused.”

Only Bailey and Forster remain as serving officers and are the only ones that are compelled to attend the misconduct hearing, though Forster did not turn up.