Six Police Officers Lose Their Jobs Due To Their Due Membership In A Derogatory WhatsApp Group

Following a disciplinary hearing, six police constables in the UK have lost their jobs for participating in a WhatsApp group that traded “grossly obscene” texts.

The six officers from three forces were fired after an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) revealed they had engaged in gross misconduct. They were also warned that they would have lost their jobs if they had not already resigned.

Pc. Gary Bailey of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Pc. Matthew Forster of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) are the two active officers who have been fired.

Pcs. Joel Borders, Jonathon Cobban, and William Neville of the MPS, as well as Pc. Daniel Comfort of the Norfolk Constabulary, are the former officers who have received dismissal notices.

They will all be added to the College of Policing’s barred list, except for Pc. Forster, who is subject to different rules, preventing them from ever working for the police service again.

They were all discovered to have violated police professional conduct standards for dishonest behavior, authority, respect, and courtesy, calling out and reporting improper behavior, and equality and diversity.

The “Bottles and Stoppers” chat group, as it was known, was established in February 2019, according to an IOPC official. When the messages were exchanged, all of the involved officers had recently transitioned from CNC to the MPS.

“During our investigation, we analyzed more than 6,000 messages which included racist and homophobic comments, and derogatory remarks aimed at domestic abuse victims, people with disabilities, and women.

“Examples included comments about starving African children eating flies; references to ‘filthy Feltham’ in the context of the area’s diversity, ‘grooming’ of young foreign girls by buying them prawn balls, and the Tasering of children and animals; use of offensive terms such as ‘mong’ and ‘pikey’, and the comment ‘they only have to say yes once’ in a clear reference to rape and/or sexual assault.

“A remark about ‘dodgy’ showers at Auschwitz prompted the response ‘very popular tho. I heard people were queuing up to go in them’.”

IOPC regional director Sal Naseem said: “The views expressed by these officers do not belong in a civilized society and as we have said before, social media cannot be a hiding place for them whether on a public platform or as part of a private group.

“Behaviour of this kind undermines public confidence in policing and the dismissal rulings by the panel today send out a strong message that it will not be tolerated.

“We will continue to ensure, along with police forces, that this type of behavior is rooted out and those responsible are held to account for their actions.”

In contrast to Borders, who was found guilty of five offenses during a Westminster Magistrates’ Court trial, Cobban was found guilty of three counts of communicating egregiously obscene words over a public communications network.

Both of them received three-month prison terms in November, but they were released on bail while an appeal was underway.