Cleveland Police officer accused of urinating in Urban Outfitters changing room in York

The retailer paid £492 to have the cubicle professionally cleaned and the store’s nine fitting rooms had to be closed. Credit: Google

A police officer faces the sack after it was claimed she urinated in a clothes shop fitting room while off duty and drunk.

PC Amelia Shearer, of Cleveland Police, is accused of gross misconduct over the alleged incident, which is said to have happened at Urban Outfitters, in York, when she was socialising with a friend last September.

The retailer paid £492 to have the cubicle professionally cleaned and the store’s nine fitting rooms had to be closed, a disciplinary hearing at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium heard on Monday 22 August.

PC Shearer denies urinating in the store and lying to her boss afterwards.

Inspector Christian Duree told the hearing that PC Shearer telephoned him the following day, a Sunday, to tell him about the allegation.

He said: "Amelia was upset, crying down the phone to me, she was embarrassed, in her own words 'mortified'."

He said the probationer told him she had been drinking and socialising in York and she had been stopped by a police officer who said she was alleged to have urinated in the Urban Outfitters changing room.

"She told me she had been in the shop and had been in the cubicle to try clothes on," added Insp Duree.

"She was adamant she had not urinated in the changing room."

Insp Duree said that, during the 15-minute call, PC Shearer admitted being drunk while in York but said she had not been disorderly and had not been arrested.

PC Shearer wept when her barrister, Joan Smith, asked Insp Duree, who had been in charge of her development for a year, for his opinion of her.

He said: "From my experience as a police officer she has been absolutely spot-on, an excellent officer.

"She deals with members of the public exceptionally well.

"Her performance as a probationer was excellent."

Olivia Checa-Dover, for the force, said PC Shearer initially told her inspector she had been trying on clothes in the cubicle, but that account was wrong, and she now said she had gone in to adjust her bra.

The hearing continues.

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