Officer dismissed after admitting 21 acts of misconduct crossing ‘personal and professional’ divide

A police officer has been dismissed after admitting a litany of misconduct allegations, which included contacting prostitutes while on duty and leaking “sensitive” information to journalists.

Inspector Lee Lyons also accepted being rude and aggressive to his colleagues, a gross misconduct tribunal was told.

The hearing on Monday (December 14) for the 40-year-old officer was the first held in public by Sussex Police in line with new national rules.

Insp Lyons accepted 21 allegations of misconduct in what Chief Constable Giles York described as behaviour that “breached the boundaries between personal and professional life”.

It also emerged that police had discussed criminal charges over the misconduct allegations with prosecutors, but it was deemed the internal police process “sufficient”.

Insp Lyons did not attend the hearing and declined to say anything in mitigation but Mr York said he had signed a document accepting all the allegations.

Among the allegations Insp Lyons admitted included using his personal phone at work to make 23 calls on one day alone last year to women believed to be prostitutes.

While off-duty on September 11 in 2014, he posted: “Can`t go into massive detail, and not for wider posting on FB. Estranged father shot daughter and then shot himself.

“He died at scene, she is currently at King`s College, London; she will likely die soon but there is a chance she might pull through.”

Insp Lyons also admitted having “formed and maintained a relationship with a local news reporter” from at least May 2012 to the present day and given the journalist information about police matters.

He admitted confirming to the reporter on August 2 2012 that a Hastings-based sergeant had been dismissed for, in the reporter`s words, a “racist comment”.

Among other matters, he also sent sensitive and restricted documents from his Sussex Police email account to his personal account.

Mr York dismissed Insp Lyons with immediate effect.

He said the officer had showed “promise” in his early career but “for whatever reason the allegations found today demonstrated a pattern of behaviour that breached the boundaries between personal and professional life”.

He said the behaviour “persisted even after receiving specific management intervention, falling a long way short of the standards of behaviour expected in Sussex Police”.

Sussex Police started investigating “after very sensitive details” of four cases were passed to a journalist who then sought clarification of the information.

Deputy Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney asked the anti-corruption unit to find the source of the leak and other incidents were discovered, the force said.

Insp Lyons was suspended on October 2, 2014. No complaint has been received about the matter from an external party.

Ms Pinkney said: “Lyons was passing on information that was operationally sensitive and may well have had an effect on victims or their families or may have had a negative impact on community tension.

“I asked our anti-corruption unit to investigate and Lyons was identified as the potential source. The investigation has been complex, but as soon as he was identified, we immediately suspended him.”