A SENIOR PSNI officer asked a shop manager to “let it go” after a colleague was detained on suspicion of shoplifting, an investigation by the Police Ombudsman’s Office has found.

Despite the officer’s claims that he had meant “let it go to the police to deal with”, Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, concluded that the officer had abused his position by trying to persuade the shop to drop any further action against his colleague.

The incident happened on 26 January 2011, after a female police officer (Officer 2) was detained on suspicion of shoplifting at a store in Lisburn.

After being apprehended, Officer 2 called her senior line manager (Officer 1), who then rang the store and asked to speak to the shop manager.

The shop manager later told Police Ombudsman investigators that Officer 1 had on at least two occasions during the call asked her to “let it go”. She believed the phrase had meant ‘forget about it and don’t involve police’. She refused and reported the incident.

Officer 2 was then arrested on suspicion of theft and going equipped for theft. The PSNI’s Professional Standard’s Department subsequently referred Officer 1’s actions during the incident to the Police Ombudsman’s Office for independent investigation.

Police Ombudsman investigators began an investigation and established that the phone call between Officer 2 and the store manager had not been recorded.

When interviewed under criminal caution, Officer 1 said Officer 2 had called him from the shop in a hysterical state. He said he had understood from the call that the store manager wished to talk to him, and that was why he had called the store, as well as to look after the welfare of one of his staff.

He added that he had never met Officer 2 outside work, and apart from a few phone contacts on the 25 and 26 January 2011, and a greeting message, there had been no phone contact between the pair.

However, billing enquiries showed there to have been 74 phone contacts between the two officers’ mobile phones during January and February 2011. Two phones used by Officer 1 were then seized and sent for forensic examination in order to retrieve text messages.

The phones were examined by two specialist organisations, but neither was able to retrieve any messages. However, it was established that Officer 1 had saved Officer 2’s number against a different name.

Officer 1 was then interviewed a second time under criminal caution. During this interview, he admitted that he had not previously disclosed the full nature of his contact with Officer 2 because it had been so sensitive.

He said he had some concerns about the unit in which they both worked, although he could not pinpoint exactly what those concerns were. He said he had initiated a professional relationship with Officer 2 in a subtle attempt to establish whether there was evidence to support his concerns.

Officer 1 added that he had not discussed these concerns, or his decision to initiate a relationship, with anyone else, and stated that most of the contact had been via phone to avoid suspicion.

While he accepted that some of the messages might have appeared flirtatious, he said this had been to establish rapport with Officer 2 in order to extract information from her as to what was going on in the unit.

Police Ombudsman investigators subsequently made enquiries with the PSNI, and established that the Service was unaware of any issues in the unit in which Officers 1 and 2 worked.

A search warrant was executed by the Police Ombudsman’s Office in order to obtain two phones used by Officer 2, who handed them over voluntarily.  Two messages sent by Officer 1 to Officer 2 were found on the phones, one of which ended in “xo”.

Officer 1 was interviewed under criminal caution for a third time, during which he admitted it had been poor judgement on his part not to admit to the full extent of his phone contact with Officer 2. He could not recall saving Officer 2’s number under a different name, and said that he had put “xo” at the end of a message to make it slightly flirtatious or jokey.

He reiterated that his relationship with Officer 2 was purely professional, and said he could not recall the content of any of the 74 messages and phone calls with Officer 2, including a call lasting 10 minutes two days after the incident at the shopping centre.

At the conclusion of the Police Ombudsman’s investigation, a file was sent to the Public Prosecution Service. Having considered the file, the PPS subsequently directed that Officer 1 should not be prosecuted on public interest grounds.

Following the direction, the Police Ombudsman interviewed Officer 1 in relation to misconduct issues. A report was sent to the police on 31 January 2012 recommending the Officer 1 be disciplined, and also pointing out that the officer was eligible to retire from the police in April 2012.

The police, however, did not respond until 25 April 2012, at which stage they advised that there had been an unavoidable delay, beyond their control, in processing the report.

This left insufficient time for Officer 1 to receive 28 days notice of misconduct proceedings, as required by regulations, and he duly retired from police before disciplinary action could be taken.

The Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, has since recommended that in situations in which the Office has found evidence sufficient to warrant formal misconduct proceedings, and in which the officer is shortly entitled to retire, the officer’s status will be subject to ongoing monthly review by both the Police Ombudsman’s Office and the PSNI before he/she is able to retire.