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A police officer who described searching women as “good fun” and called a vulnerable suspect an “albino tranny” has been sacked from his dream job.
PC William Pope also mocked a dementia sufferer and shared pictures from crime scenes with friends on a WhatsApp group called ‘Call of Duty season pass’.
In other messages he sent an image of a crashed car in Canterbury city centre, followed by the ‘crying with laughter’ emoji, and a selfie pretending to be smoking cannabis at a drugs farm.
And on another occasion after a car plunged off a cliff following a police chase in Ramsgate, he shared a KentOnline article about the incident with his friends, stating: “Well that pursuit went well.”
PC Pope has now been dismissed for sending the string of unprofessional and “troubling” messages over the course of eight months.
His actions, which he admitted were “naive and silly”, were deemed to constitute gross misconduct following a police probe.
Eleven of the 18 allegations against PC Pope, who is in his early 30s, were proven at a two-day hearing at Kent Police headquarters this week.
The constable claimed he was lonely and wanted to impress friends he played the video game Call of Duty with. Despite insisting he had learned from his mistakes, he was given his marching orders.
The panel was told PC Pope first started sending the posts in the summer of 2018 when he had just joined the force’s Canterbury unit and was on probation.
None of the recipients of the WhatsApp messages were fellow police officers, and confidential information had been shared with the group’s members numerous times.
In one of the early messages, sent in July 2018, PC Pope wrote in the group: “Done searching females too. Dirty b*****s hiding them under their boobs. Good fun searching thou x”.
The inappropriate message was referring to a training exercise he had recently completed.
Later, PC Pope was said to have been “indiscreet in the extreme” by revealing police tactics of an undercover mission when he posted: “Serving a warrant to nick three guys tomorrow morning,
ha ha”.
He also shared a picture of door-opening equipment which was to be used in the operation, accompanied by a message stating: “Got my rabbit hidden so can bust down door if don’t open, so excited, countdown time in the van waiting.”
In February last year, when at a cannabis factory, he sent a photo of himself in uniform from the crime scene mimicking smoking a joint.
He messaged the group saying “getting high asf”, and “I got munchies u guys on later heading home stoned now”.
In the same month, he admitted mocking a man with dementia when he sent a screenshot of a file titled ‘Invaded by Army of Ants’ - relating to an elderly man who had called for police assistance due to ants running around his ankles.
In another message sent on an unknown date, disgraced PC Pope wrote: “I’ve just been the f****** cold sea pull a women out. Time get some dry clothes.... Herne bay. She been taken away hypo thermos off her nut on drugs”.
In another message, he seemingly boasted about apprehending a vulnerable transgender individual.
The message reading “u would of loved my spear tackle I did, crazy suicidal knife wielding albino tranny” was deemed by the misconduct panel to be “highly inappropriate and very troubling”.
Speaking at the hearing, before the panel deliberated on his fate, PC Pope apologised for his actions.
“This is a job that I love and I really passionately enjoy it,” he said. “I’ve regretted what I did every day for the last 13 months, and I’ve treated every day as my last as I enjoy what I do. I’m really sorry to the whole of Kent Police that I’ve brought this upon them.”
'He was over-excited about work and was trying to impress his friends...'
Richard Atchley, defending the constable, stated how PC Pope had no partner at the time and had not yet built up relationships with colleagues at the force - therefore the only way to share his new experiences was with his friends over WhatsApp.
“He was over-excited about work and was trying to impress his friends,” he said.
Mr Atchley argued that PC Pope - despite having sat through Kent Police’s data safety lessons - did not receive sufficient tuition on the dangers of WhatsApp, and as a result “misbehaved in way in which he thought was alright”.
The panel rebutted that claim, saying they found it difficult to accept ignorance or naivety as a defence.
“All of this should have been entirely foreseeable to an officer regardless of their length of service or seniority,” they said.
The constable’s messages were discovered when another member of the chat group had his phone searched as part of a separate criminal investigation.
PC Pope later enrolled on a social media course, but his actions were deemed so severe that dismissal was the only option.
Speaking after the hearing, Detective Chief Inspector Keith Roberts welcomed the probe and criticised the former constable’s actions.
“PC Pope chose to post a series of misjudged and inappropriate messages to people on a private social media group,” he said.
“The public has every right to expect all Kent Police officers and staff adhere to the highest standards of professionalism and his conduct fell well short of what was expected of him.
“It is entirely appropriate that he has been held to account and put before an independent chair, who has determined a proportionate course of action.”
