South Yorkshire Police officer faces misconduct hearing over use of force's computer system

The accelerated misconduct hearing examining the allegations against PC Charlotte Kaill is to be held at South Yorkshire Police’s Professional Standards Department in Chapeltown on Thursday, May 12 this year.

Acccording to a notice announcing the misconduct hearing, PC Kaill is alleged to have ‘undertaken checks on the South Yorkshire Police computer systems between August 2019 and February 2021. The checks on police systems were undertaken with no legitimate policing purpose’.

If proven, such behaviour would amount to ‘breaches of the Standards of Professional Behaviour in respect of confidentiality, discreditable conduct, honesty and integrity and orders and instructions’.

The force’s website states that such breaches of the Standards ‘are so serious as to justify dismissal and therefore constitute gross misconduct’.

Misconduct hearings are held when a police force believes an employee may have breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour.

South Yorkshire Police’s website states: “Misconduct hearings are held to present the facts of a case and allow officers the opportunity to explain their conduct and the circumstances surrounding an allegation.”

Such hearings are usually held in public in order to ‘show that the police disciplinary system is open and transparent and holds officers in breach of acceptable Standards of Professional Behaviour, or those that found guilty of misconduct, accountable for their actions’.

However, the person responsible for chairing misconduct hearings can decide to exclude the public from part or all of a sitting.