A six month misconduct investigation was launched against top police officers for allegedly making disparaging remarks about Wayne Couzens (the killer cop), which also included calls to him ‘ginger’.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct started an investigation into a group Police Federation officers after they discussed the Met’s legal defense in a private message service.
Watchdog claimed that federation officers had violated standards by making comments and speculating about his suicide, as well as discussing legal issues.
A watchdog investigated top police officers after they made ‘disparaging comments’ about Sarah Everard’s murderer Wayne Couzens. This included calling him ginger.
John Apter was the chair of the Federation, and he allegedly didn’t challenge any messages from colleagues.
Officials retaliated by accusing the IOPC being cruel and defended the right to talk about a case that so severely damaged public opinion of police officers.
According to The Times, it was claimed that this was revenge for the watchdog who had repeatedly criticised the investigations of the federation. But the Times reports that the IOPC refuted the claim.
John Apter was the chair of the Federation, and he is accused of failing to contest messages from colleagues.
Simon Kempton (national treasurer) was among those who made comments about Couzens defense. He claimed that Everard was abducted and then gave Everard to a gang for a payment. This is not a legitimate police purpose.
National secretary Alex Duncan claimed that only a ‘nasty bang to the head’ could explain it, while national vice chairman Che Donald added ‘he’d be better off going with the defence that he’s ginger’, and was accused of a standards breach after the comments were described as ‘disparaging’.
Apter and all other officers who didn’t respond to the call were cleared eventually.
The IOPC told the Times: ‘When given our findings, both forces agreed their officers [Duncan and Donald]Should be subject to misconduct proceedings
“It’s not our job to determine whether an officer has violated professional standards. That is up to the hearing or police misconduct meeting.”