‘Any other member of the public would have faced the full force of the law in open court and not been granted anonymity’
Arfon Jones during his time as police and crime commissioner for north Wales(Image: Daily Post Wales)
South Wales Police has been accused of “abusing” its powers to shield disgraced officers from open justice.
It comes after the force cited “embarrassing” details as a reason for blocking WalesOnline from naming an officer who was sacked over “predatory” behaviour at a gym.
While off duty, the officer covertly photographed men in a gym then used an Instagram alias to bombard them with disturbing sexual messages and images he had taken without consent.
At a misconduct hearing, assistant chief constable Jenny Gilmer dismissed the officer for “predatory” gross misconduct but restricted reporting of his name and rank.
Arfon Jones, who had a long career as a police officer before spending five years as police and crime commissioner (PCC) for north Wales, told us: “It is clear from the facts outlined that there was evidence to prosecute the officer in open court but the police and CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) allowed the matter to be dealt with by a misconduct panel where the officer was sacked but not punished [in the courts] for a sexual offence, thus avoiding any sex prevention order.
“Any other member of the public would have faced the full force of the law in open court and not been granted anonymity. The South Wales PCC should be held to account by her Police and Crime Panel for this abuse of the justice system.”
The South Wales PCC is Labour’s Emma Wools, who is paid £88,602 a year by the taxpayer to hold the force to account. But last year she came under fire for supporting anonymity for an officer who had been let off with a caution after illegally accessing police computer material, an offence punishable with up to two years in prison.
This week, when we asked Ms Wools if she backed the order for anonymity in the gym case, she failed to respond. But Mr Jones has submitted a question for her to answer at next month’s Police and Crime Panel meeting.
His submission accuses South Wales Police of “not operating in an open and transparent way” and giving disgraced officers “an easy way out by being sacked or resigning… without publicly recorded sanction or a criminal record”.
Mr Jones went on: “In fact, how do you, the public’s representative in south Wales, know that this ex-officer is not posing a daily risk?
“The way this criminality was dealt with was unequal and justice was not seen to be done. My question, therefore, is whether you will undertake an investigation into South Wales Police’s unjustified use of anonymity in misconduct hearings.
“And, as a member of the South Wales criminal justice board, will you scrutinise the CPS’ decision-making around cases where officers have committed alleged crimes but where they allow the police to cover up offenders’ identity on spurious grounds?”
The decision to anonymise the policeman in the gym case, “Officer Y”, was taken by Ms Gilmer. Initially her explanation was that naming him would be “embarrassing” and have an “adverse impact” on him and his family.
WalesOnline appealed against the reporting restriction but Ms Gilmer rejected our arguments for transparency.
She refused to explain her reasons but insisted they “do go beyond embarrassment to the officer and, in my judgement as chair, would have led to catastrophic impact on family members of the officer”.
She told us she did not restrict reporting “lightly” and did “weigh up” the importance of open justice.
But she felt anonymity would not be “appropriate” due to reasons that “contain a level of sensitive detail”. She also said it would not be “appropriate” to explain these reasons.
Officer Y was arrested on suspicion of malicious communications but the case never made it to court. According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the “evidential” test was not met.
The CPS initially said it did not know why the gym case never made it to court as the records had been destroyed.
But its spokesman later clarified: “After considering all the evidence, we decided this case did not meet the evidential stage of our test for prosecution. Civil proceedings, such as misconduct hearings, are judged on a different test, which is on the balance of probabilities.”
Yet gym CCTV from around the time the photos were taken showed the officer leaning over an interior balcony with a phone in his hand while one of the victims exercised below.
And, after the Instagram account was linked to the officer’s address, the misconduct panel found his home had not been visited by anyone who had both access to the Wi-fi password and membership of the gym.
“There is no cogent explanation as to anyone else who could have sent these messages from the Instagram account,” said the panel, concluding that the officer had been dishonest in his denials.
Ms Gilmer described the officer’s actions, which went on for months, as “predatory” and “extreme”. Gym members were unsettled by the images and messages, which included: “How big is your d***?”; “When you see the movement in your grey joggers makes mouth watering [sic]”; and “Can you s*** in my mouth?”
The force’s other anonymity orders
In the computer misuse case, the decision to anonymise the policeman, “Officer F”, was made by chief constable Jeremy Vaughan. Mr Vaughan barred him from policing following gross misconduct in which he repeatedly leaked information from the force computer system to members of the public.
The chief constable said he restricted reporting because of concerns for “the health and wellbeing of a child”, who we understand had no direct involvement in the case.
Last year we also revealed two other South Wales Police officers’ names had been kept secret in misconduct hearings, both because of “concerns for their safety”. We found this out after reporting the force to a data watchdog because it had failed to respond to our Freedom of Information request.
A landmark Supreme Court ruling in the 2017 case of Khuja v Times Newspapers found that even if press coverage of court proceedings involving Mr Khuja was “painful” or “humiliating” for him and his family, this was “the price to be paid for open justice and the freedom of the press”.
The courts have established that open justice principles extend to police misconduct proceedings and that reporting of these cases should only be restricted in exceptional circumstances. Four years ago the Basingstoke Gazette won a High Court case involving an ex-PC, Terry Cooke, who had fought to remain anonymous after being sacked for gross misconduct. The judge, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, said public scrutiny was “the guarantor of the quality of justice”.
Speaking about the gym case, a South Wales Police spokesman said: “An order was made to anonymise the officer under the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 and Home Office guidance… The vast majority of misconduct hearings are advertised in advance, heard in public with details of the outcome published on our website afterwards. These hearings are open for the public and media to attend.”
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