A GWENT Police inspector could be facing the sack after admitting a number of charges at a misconduct hearing.

The officer - referred to as 'Officer A' - faced a number of allegations at a gross misconduct hearing at Gwent Police headquarters in Cwmbran relating to their professional behaviour, which began today.

The charges relate to three separate incidents. In the first, Officer A was asked a number of time between July and October 2017 for a duty report about an investigation they were involved in, but did not respond.

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In the second, the officer was stopped on the A4042 between Abergavenny and Llanfoist, and was found to be driving without insurance, MOT certificate and a vehicle excise licence.

The third charge was that Officer A had left their car unattended in a church car park for eight weeks in June 2019.

The first session of the hearing on Monday saw the allegations laid out and the opening statement by Cicely Hayward, representing Gwent Police.

The inspector admitted lying about their phone not being in their possession and thereby suggesting they could not have seen missed calls or received voicemails, lying to their supervisor, and suggesting to a detective chief inspector they had sent a report when they had not.

Although they admitted to also driving without insurance, MOT certificate and a vehicle excise licence, they argued this did not amount to acting “dishonestly and without integrity.”

They denied producing their warrant card to a police constable when they were stopped in order to influence his actions.

Officer A admitted abandoning their vehicle in a church car park for around eight weeks without consent, without leaving contact details, causing an obstruction and inconvenience to legitimate users of the car park.

Ailsa Williamson, representing Officer A, argued these did not constitute gross misconduct, only misconduct.

Ms Hayward, however, argued “collectively these charges do justify dismissal.”

The hearing heard, relating to the duty report in July 2017, Officer A did not respond to repeated attempts to contact them until September 5, where they said it would need to wait until after they had returned from leave, but they had cleared this with their line manager.

The line manager had no recollection of this, said Ms Hayward, and any agreement would have needed to have been made with Professional Standards rather than Officer A’s line manager.

On September 15, Officer A claimed the phone he had been using had been mistakenly picked up by an officer from the Metropolitan Police at a conference, and that officer had the phone for “around two weeks.”

On October 3, Officer A said they had submitted the report to Professional Standards, which they could not find any record of, so Officer A was served their misconduct papers on October 9.

The duty report was received on October 13, and was found to be “created on the day it was sent.”

When interviewed about the incident on March 20, 2019, Officer A admitted the charges.

“His position then was broadly what it is today,” said Ms Hayward. “He admitted the dishonesty.

“His explanation was that he was going through a difficult period with his mental health at the time and that was the explanation for his behaviour.”

The hearing continues.