A Special Constable with Northamptonshire Police has resigned after lying about using police systems to find out about a man who had been arrested.
Former SC Ross Dykes was subject of a gross misconduct hearing after he accessed police systems in December 2020.
According to a report released by the force, Mr Dykes breached the standards of professional behaviour after his unauthorised access of confidential systems.
The background to the allegation is that on December 23, 2020 Northamptonshire Police arrested a person who was released from custody the same day.
The former officer accessed force systems on December 24 and conducted a “detailed” search of the custody system, he then conducted a second search for information about the person detained, providing 652 results.
The officer accessed the records of the detained person, which was the only name from the list he accessed.
On January 8, 2021 the officer was asked to explain the reasons for searching and accessing the information relating to the detained person.
However the report said he did not provide a satisfactory response.
Mr Dykes said that he had made the search to verify intelligence he had been given by a member of the public that there had been drug dealing in the Corby area.
However, that was found not to be true.
Concluding the report, committee members said that the officer’s culpability was high and the harm of his actions was also high.
They said that the incident “stemmed from curiosity”, but added that did not detract from the “seriousness” of his actions.
Mr Dykes had resigned before the misconduct hearing, and did not contest the findings.
However, the committee said that they would have dismissed him without notice if he had not already left.
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