By Gavin Mackintosh-
The Metropolitan Police force has apologised to former glamour model Katie Price and her son, Harvey, after two officers were sacked over discriminatory messages they sent about him.
Pc Glynn Rees and Pc Dave Selway were dismissed by a disciplinary panel on Friday at Palestra House in Southwark, central London, after they and six former officers were found guilty of gross misconduct.
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The pair – along with former sergeant Luke Thomas, former acting sergeant Luke Allen and former constables Kelsey Buchan, Lee South, Darren Jenner, and Carlo Francisco – were also barred for life from the police service.
The group was found to have sent racist, homophobic, disablist, transphobic and sexist messages between May 2016 and June 2018 in a WhatsApp group called “Secret Squirrel Shit”.
The men were two of eight serving and ex-officers found to have committed gross misconduct. The others had either already resigned or been dismissed.
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PC Glynn Rees and “Officer B”, who was granted anonymity for the duration of the six-day Met Police hearing, were both sacked by the disciplinary panel. The Met later named Officer B as PC Dave Selway.
Mr Savell said it is “very difficult” to root out officers who should be sacked from the force, especially when “someone is a very good officer” – as many of the officers involved had glowing character references.
He added that “dark humour” has “no place in policing”.
During the hearing, Price posted a photograph of her son on her Instagram story, saying she was “proud” of him – though she did not mention the case.
The 44-year-old TV personality previously said she had been “shocked and upset” by the comments officers made about her 20-year-old son, who suffers from Prader–Willi syndrome and autism.
The glamour model told Channel 5 News: “I hope they feel ashamed. I hope they’re embarassed,”adding: “It’s about time justice has been done.”
The glamour model said she hopes they “will never serve in the police force again, and if they ever get any other job that it goes on their CV because I’ll tell you what, there won’t be a lot of people who want to employ them after this…
“Would you want to employ someone when you know they do stuff like this? Because I know I wouldn’t. So it will affect them for the rest of their life.
The panel’s legal chair Christopher McKay said the messages had caused “significant harm” to the “already tarnished reputation of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)”, and had upset TV presenter Ms Price and her son.
He said: “Harm has been caused to Harvey Price and his mother, who have learned of the posts recently, and has resulted in a loss of confidence in the MPS by Katie Price.”
Following the panel’s ruling, the Met apologised to the Prices, with Cdr Savell saying: “I was repulsed and ashamed to read the deeply offensive messages sent by these officers and I utterly condemn their behaviour.
“I am deeply sorry to those who have been the subject of such awful, disgusting messages.”
Derogatory
Legal chair Christopher McKay said the messages had been “derogatory” towards Mr Price, and towards a junior female officer known in the hearings as Officer A.
The panel found the most senior-ranking officer in the group, Mr Thomas, was “one of the most active participants” in the WhatsApp group, and “the most blameworthy of all the officers”.
Mock
He mocked Mr Price’s weight in some messages, called Officer A “f****** ugly”, and joked that he should name his dog “Auschwitz”, “Adolf” or “Fred” or “Ian” after “my two favourite child sex killers”.
Mr McKay said that Mr Thomas “should have set the tone” for the group, but instead “became one of the worst offenders”.
Mr Jenner, who Mr McKay said is “believed to be living abroad and has not participated in any way in these proceedings”, contributed to the conversation about naming a dog after concentration camps.
Meanwhile, Mr Rees described an image of Mr Price riding a child’s train as “genius”, which the panel found to be “obviously sarcastic” and “making fun of him behaving in a childlike manner because of his disability”.
An edited photograph of Mr Price was sent by Mr Selway, with the caption: “You’ve heard of elf on a shelf, now get ready for Harvey Price eating Uncle Ben’s basmati rice after trying to read three blind mice on spice, saying ‘hello you c***.”
Mr Allen, who said he felt “ashamed” by his comments, had posted a photograph of himself in the chat attempting to imitate Mr Price, with the caption: “Hello you c***”.
A colleague was referred to as a “f****** rude little c***” with a “mongy fanclub” in a message sent by Ms Buchan, who also insulted Officer A’s appearance, as did Mr Francisco.
Mr South, who was “one of the more active members” of the chat, made a reference to “cotton picking” when talking about a black inspector, and said: “If any of this group got out my job would be f***** long ago.”
Mr McKay said that many of the officers had been considered good at their jobs, including Mr Thomas who had “14 commendations he had received throughout his career”.
However, he added that their “personal mitigations” and the fact that the messages were shared in a “private” group “provides no defence”.
Mr Thomas, Mr Allen, Ms Buchan, Mr South and Mr Jenner resigned from the Met after the messages were unearthed, while Mr Francisco was dismissed in July 2022 for “an unrelated matter” involving “discreditable conduct”, according to the force.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan welcomed the dismissals.
He told the PA news agency earlier: “I’m as disgusted as other Londoners are by the fact that certain police officers, any member of society, in fact, should behave in this way, further evidence of institutional racism, institutional social institutional homophobia.
“There’s no place in our police service for anybody who is racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic.
“We want our police service to be anti-racist, anti-misogynistic and anti-homophobic.”
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