Most North East Officers Barred in 2025 Had Already Left

Nine of 14 North East police officers named in a 2025 misconduct roundup had already resigned or retired before the finding. The hearings still put them on the barred list. They did not march those nine off a shift.

The year-end account covered Northumbria Police and Durham Constabulary. Five officers were dismissed while still serving. The other nine had already gone, so panels recorded that they would have been dismissed, which is how a former officer is barred from policing again.

Nine of the 14 Named Officers Had Already Left

The roundup was not a full census of every 2025 case. It named 14 officers whose hearings concluded, or whose post-exit findings were published, during the calendar year. Northumbria accounted for 11 of those names and Durham for three.

Five were sacked without notice while they were still on the books: PC Michael Perry, PC Cameron Watson and DC David Lavery at Northumbria, plus Officer X and PC Emma Donnelly at Durham. Officer X cannot be named for legal reasons.

The other nine had already resigned or retired. Former chief superintendent Karl Wilson had retired. Former PC Mark Blanchard retired on 19 August 2025 after a stalking conviction. Former detective constable Niall Thubron retired in May 2025. Former PC Jordan Kelly resigned on 15 May 2024 after a court fine, with the force finding coming later. Former PC Amy Reid resigned the day before her hearing. Former detective Sue Thorpe, former PC Jamie Peacock, former Officer A and former PC Adil Mohammed had also left.

THE 14 NAMED HEARINGS

Northumbria had 3,829 officers at 31 March 2025, according to the force’s own accounts. Fifteen barred names in a financial year is a small share of that headcount. It is still a large share of the names the public actually reads.

Nationally, More Than Half Were Already Out

The College of Policing’s barred-list tables for 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 make the local split look ordinary. Forces in England and Wales placed 735 regular officers on the list, up from 593 the year before, a 24% rise. Of those 735, 334 were dismissed while serving, 373 after resignation and 28 after retirement. That is 401 officers who had already left.

The College recorded 15 Northumbria officers on the barred list in that financial year (7 still serving, 7 after resignation, 1 after retirement). Durham’s official count for the same window was 2 (1 serving, 1 after resignation). Those figures sit on a different calendar from the 14-name roundup, and Durham’s own professional standards report later posted a higher calendar-year total.

BARRED LIST PLACEMENTS, APRIL 2024 TO MARCH 2025

Since the list began on 15 December 2017, 2,834 regular officers have been added. Northumbria’s running total is 63. Durham’s is 11. Most of the 735 in the latest year were constables (640). The College also recorded 2 chief superintendents and 1 chief officer. Wilson, who joined Northumbria in 1998, fits the senior end of that table.

Home Office misconduct statistics, published 22 January 2026, count a related but separate series: cases finalised in the year to 31 March 2025. Forces finalised 15,843 allegations involving officers, up 20% from 13,208. Some 8,031 distinct officers were involved, 5.2% of a 155,886-strong workforce. A total of 1,687 officers were referred to proceedings, and 695 officers dismissed in the year to March 2025, including those found to have been people who would have been dismissed after they left. That 695 is 0.4% of the workforce, the same share as the 563 dismissals a year earlier. Of the 695, 392 came from accelerated hearings and 303 from standard hearings.

Assistant Chief Constable Tom Harding, director of operational standards at the College of Policing, said on 15 October 2025 that the barred-list rise showed forces acting against officers who fell below the standard the public expects.

These figures show a determined and robust effort from police forces to rid policing of officers whose behaviour falls below the high standards that we, and the public, expect from them.

Tom Harding, Assistant Chief Constable and Director of Operational Standards, College of Policing

The College’s own reason codes for the 735 names are a map of the same faults that filled the North East roundup. Dishonesty was recorded 126 times. Sexual offences or misconduct appeared 72 times, with 31 further instances of abuse of position for a sexual purpose. Inappropriate communications appeared 81 times. Unlawful access or disclosure of information appeared 82 times. Several reasons can attach to one officer.

May’s Fast-Track Rule Was Built for Leavers

The Home Office had already described the split as the normal outcome, not a North East quirk. The explanatory memorandum to the Police (Conduct, Performance and Complaints and Misconduct) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 states that more than half of police officers dismissed each year have already resigned or retired by the point they are dismissed.

Those regulations that came into force on 28 May 2025 were written for that majority. They were made on 6 May 2025 and laid the next day. For a former officer with a case to answer for gross misconduct, the default is now an accelerated hearing run by the chief officer or a senior delegate, unless the force decides a full panel is needed or the former officer asks for one within 10 working days.

WHAT CHANGED ON 28 MAY 2025

• Leavers go fast: A former officer facing gross misconduct is steered to an accelerated hearing unless the force or the officer chooses a full hearing within 10 working days.
• Dismissal is the default: If gross misconduct is found, the outcome must be dismissal without notice unless the panel is satisfied that exceptional circumstances apply, in which case a final written warning or a reduction in rank is still available.
• Indictable convictions: A conviction for an indictable-only offence now amounts to gross misconduct without a separate argument over the label.

Sarah Jones, a Home Office minister, told the Commons on 28 October 2025 that the May package set a statutory presumption of fast-track hearings for former officers. She also said the department did not hold a total for officers who resign or retire while under investigation.

The valve in the new rule showed up inside Northumbria before the year ended. On 11 December 2025, Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine found that detective sergeant Katrina Moore had committed gross misconduct by filing a statement in another officer’s name for the Crown Prosecution Service, then reduced her to constable rather than sacking her. Jardine wrote that dismissal could have been justified but was not required, and that the officer knew how close she had come to being dismissed. Moore is not one of the 14 named leavers. She is the exception the May text allows.

What the North East Hearings Found

The conduct behind the 14 names clustered in two places: sex and honesty. Perry attended Police Federation counselling in Annitsford between November 2023 and January 2024 and told the counsellor, “I hope I’m not being too forward, I just really want to have angry sex right now.” He also described women as “man haters” and said they were all feminists, “which was the main problem in society.” He was dismissed without notice.

Officer X, on a Newcastle night out with four female colleagues, referred to one officer’s breasts in crude terms, touched two officers, and told one of them, “I want to take you back to a hotel and treat you like a dog.” He denied the allegations and said he might have been spiked. The panel found the facts proved and sacked him without notice.

Lavery asked a female colleague, after a day out in York, whether she was coming back to his “for some sexual intercourse.” Mohammed left before a November hearing after years of sexualised comments about bodies, pornography and lesbian content. Wilson exchanged more than 2,800 WhatsApp messages with a much younger junior colleague, initiated most of the sexual content, and was found to have assaulted his wife as he tried to stop her reading the thread. A magistrates’ court had already cleared him of one attack in May 2023. Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Hill said that if Wilson had still been serving he would have been sacked.

Honesty cases ran alongside that. Reid sent a photograph of an old positive Covid test during a leave embargo in May 2023 and supplied a doctor’s note that claimed an acute infection she did not have. Peacock failed to report for duty, then lied to sergeants and falsified screenshots. Thubron used a “key jamming” trick 38 times across 12 days between December 2024 and January 2025 so his computer looked busy while he was absent. Officer A gave TSB false information about fraud to obtain a £3,000 refund and then tried to keep it. Kelly showed a member of the public body-worn footage of a vulnerable man who had self-harmed, then was found at home with a police baton, handcuffs and leg restraints.

Two of the named officers had already been convicted of stalking. Thorpe, a detective with 19 years’ service, branded a former partner a paedophile, built fake Tinder accounts and misused the Police National Computer. Newcastle Crown Court imposed a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, and a ten-year restraining order. Jardine called her a domestic abuser.

When considering this I find it inconceivable that an officer who served in the police helping victims of domestic abuse has herself become a domestic abuser.

Vanessa Jardine, Chief Constable, Northumbria Police misconduct outcome

Blanchard, after a little over 23 years’ service, messaged, called and visited a person without consent between 16 and 27 January 2025, left flowers, wine and dog food, and received a 12-month community order with 80 hours of unpaid work. He was suspended on 5 February 2025 and retired on 19 August. Watson, in his own car on 26 August 2024, was clocked at 117 mph on the A688 in County Durham, admitted dangerous driving, drew a community order, then lost his job.

Donnelly told a tutor she had a problem at home that stopped her joining Teams calls, then spent 9.30am to 10.30am at a gym, and later sent hurtful messages to someone she believed was a witness. She was dismissed without notice while still serving, one of the five who had not already walked out.

Durham Logged Sexual Misconduct After a Blank Year

Durham’s Professional Standards Department told the Police and Crime Board in March 2026 that misconduct cases needing investigation rose from 32 in 2024 to 52 in 2025, a 63% increase. Sexual misconduct, which the report said had not featured in 2024, accounted for 10 cases in 2025, 19% of that demand. Criminal behaviour remained the largest group at 18 cases.

On outcomes, the department said no misconduct meetings were held because the live cases were assessed as gross misconduct. Seven officer cases all ended in dismissal, 4 at accelerated hearings and 3 at full gross misconduct hearings. Five of those seven had resigned before the hearing and were still dismissed so they could be placed on the College list. That calendar-year seven is not the same figure as the College’s financial-year two. It is Durham counting a later slice of 2025, and it still shows the same split: most of the people being “dismissed” had already left.

DURHAM’S 2025 PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS COUNT

• Caseload: Misconduct investigations rose from 32 to 52, with 10 sexual-misconduct files after none the year before.
• Officer outcomes: Seven cases ended in dismissal, five after the officer had already resigned.
• Staff outcomes: One dismissal, two “would have been dismissed” findings after resignation, and one final written warning for gross misconduct.
• Workforce: Durham had 1,400 full-time equivalent officers at 30 September 2025, up 1.1% from 1,385.

Two months before that board paper, the inspectorate published a harder grade. On 26 February 2026, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services found Durham inadequate for vetting and counter-corruption and said professional standards required improvement. The inspection found 684 vetting applications that had not been started and, as of 14 July 2025, 42 people without the correct level of vetting. The inspectorate warned that current practice may issue clearance to people who are not suitable to work in policing.

Hearings can still bar a former officer. They cannot unpick a vetting queue that was already too long, and they do not put a resigned inspector back on a late shift while the file is open.

The Exit-Then-Hearing Pattern Kept Running

The 2025 names did not close the file. In 2026 the same sequence kept repeating in both forces: some officers were sacked while still employed, and several others resigned first and collected a “would have been dismissed” finding a few days later.

THE SAME EXIT IN 2026

1. 8 April 2026: Durham PC Simon Keenan is dismissed after sharing a vulnerable man’s arrest and suicide-attempt details and calling him an offensive name. He was still serving.
2. 16 June 2026: Durham inspector Richard Wilson resigns after a Crown Court sentence for publishing obscene messages. The misconduct hearing on 24 June finds he would have been dismissed and places him on the barred list. He does not attend.
3. 3 September 2026: A Northumbria student-officer trainer, PC Miller, is found to have pursued sexual relationships with student officers. He had already left. The panel records that he would have been dismissed.
4. September 2026: Northumbria PC Jonathan Pattison, with 24 years’ service, is dismissed without notice after a drunken roadside assault in Birtley in front of a child. He had not left first.

Wilson’s eight-day gap between resignation and hearing is the May 2025 design working as written. The finding still lands. The officer is still barred. The force still loses him on the day he chooses to go, not on the day the panel sits. A Durham former officer known as PC D followed the same path after a panel found he had groomed a vulnerable witness in a case he was investigating; he had resigned and did not attend. Former Northumbria PC Vivek Varghese also missed his hearing after resigning, and the panel said he would have been dismissed without notice over sex-worker contact and misogynistic remarks on duty.

Placement on the police barred list and advisory list is the remaining public lever. A “would have been dismissed” finding still has to be reported to the College, and the College still has to add the name. That stops a return to policing unless a later review succeeds. It does not convert a retirement or a quiet resignation into a dismissal on the day the officer last wore the uniform.

The 14 names from 2025, and the 2026 files that followed them, keep making the same point. The North East did remove people from policing. In most of the named cases, the person had already removed themselves.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a UK police officer resign to avoid the barred list?

No. Since 15 December 2017, gross misconduct proceedings can continue after resignation or retirement if the allegation came to notice before the officer left, within 12 months after, or later with an IOPC special determination. A finding that the person would have been dismissed must be reported to the College of Policing and puts them on the barred list. Leaving during an investigation also puts them on the advisory list, which hiring forces can see and the public cannot.

How long does a dismissed officer stay on the barred list?

The College keeps the entry indefinitely unless the person wins an appeal or a later review. Public details for officers and special constables (name, force, rank, date and reason) are shown for five years from publication and are updated monthly. Police staff dismissals are held on the list but are not published in that public search.

What is the police advisory list?

It is a private College of Policing register of officers, specials and staff who resigned or retired during an investigation, or who left before an allegation came to light. Vetting teams in policing and some other bodies can see it. There is no public search. After five years a person can ask the College to take them off, and the College decides whether that is appropriate.

What did the May 2025 conduct changes do for former officers?

From 28 May 2025, a former officer with a gross misconduct case to answer is referred to an accelerated hearing unless the force decides a full hearing is needed or the former officer asks for one within 10 working days of the referral notice. Gross misconduct now carries a presumption of dismissal without notice, with a final written warning or a reduction in rank only if exceptional circumstances are found. A conviction for an indictable-only offence is treated as gross misconduct. Older allegations already notified before that date stay on the previous track unless no regulation 30 or 51 notice had yet been served.