'Dismissive and uncaring' Avon and Somerset officer who failed to investigate assaults sacked

A “dismissive and uncaring” Avon and Somerset Police officer who failed to investigate two assaults in Bristol and then lied to bosses to cover her tracks has been sacked without notice for gross misconduct, a tribunal panel ruled.

PC Rose Wilson, 30, who will also now be barred from policing, discriminated against a female victim of male violence and a black man who was attacked in his own home in front of his children.

She refused to gather evidence and tried to close their cases without making any inquiries, it was decided.

She filed “false and misleading” reports on the police database and did not upload her body-worn video despite orders from senior officers to do so.

The panel ruled this was because she knew they would reveal both victims wanted to press charges when she had said they did not.

The first incident in Horfield in July 2022 was a neighbourly altercation where a woman who had been assaulted by a man next door became frustrated that the officer was not listening to her.

Announcing the ruling on Friday 27 September, after a four-day hearing at force headquarters in Portishead, Legally Qualified Chair Jenny Tallentire said: “The officer adopted a dismissive tone towards the woman.

“Within a couple of minutes, the officer had rolled her eyes towards her colleague.

“The panel finds PC Wilson’s interruptions were almost always to undermine what the woman said or to criticise her, such as telling her she was rambling. She was not treated how a victim of crime should be treated.

“It was false and misleading to write an email to her supervising officer that the officer had given her the chance to tell them what happened but had told them to f*** off.

“The officer adopted a partisan approach to the incident from the outset. It was false and misleading to say there were no further lines of inquiry.

“There were multiple and obvious lines of inquiry which the officer did not follow.

“These false and misleading entries were made deliberately because it was the officer’s intention to shut down this investigation and she misled her supervisors.

“The officer decided that she didn’t want to undertake any investigative work in relation to this incident.”

Ms Tallentire said South Gloucestershire-based PC Wilson “lied” when she filed a report saying the woman later told her on the phone that she had been drinking that day with friends on her birthday.

She said the log entry “underplayed” the allegation from the woman that her male neighbour had pulled her arm behind her back.

The LQC said: “The panel found the officer didn’t want to investigate this incident.

“She then made false and misleading entries on records.”

The second incident, at a different address in Horfield, in September 2022, involved a man whose children had been bullied that day and his wife had taken a mobile phone from a child who had been filming it.

The child’s father went to the man’s home to get it back and punched him in the face several times, leaving him bleeding.

The victim told the officer that he had been assaulted and wanted it investigated but she falsely told him the only offence committed was taking the child’s phone.

She misleadingly wrote in an incident report that no complaint was made by either party.

The LQC said the constable was dealing with a Black victim of crime at "a time when race issues were at a height."

The panel ruled that the officer committed gross misconduct during both incidents and that the victims were “deeply upset by their treatment by this officer”.

Ms Tallentire said: “At the scene the officer’s behaviour amounted to an abuse of position.”

“Her actions have caused these people to lose trust in the police entirely.

“Public confidence in the police service is not maintained if an officer who has lied in an operational setting retains their job.

“Therefore the outcome must be dismissal without notice."

Credit: Adam Postans, LDRS