Ex-police officer tweeted ‘racist and sexist’ messages
A POLICE constable has been found guilty of gross misconduct over tweets he posted which were ‘interpreted as racist and sexist’.
Edward Pitt would have been dismissed over the tweets, had he not already resigned ahead of his misconduct hearing.
The married constable, who had 12 years of service with West Midlands Police, made comments on politicallycharged topics within the news using his personal Twitter.
The tweets, between June 2018 and December 2018, concerned the Belgrave Middleway crash which killed six people, Brexit, the London terror attack, the Grenfell Tower disaster and the Windrush petition.
Sharing an article on Australia’s strict immigration laws after the Christchurch terror attack, he said: “How many terrorist attacks have you had again? We can gladly swap Governments if you like.”
He shared an article which said the Belgrave Middleway crash driver had been demonised for being Asian – and commented: “For f*** sake, not because of anything else, no?”
In another tweet he posted Government were prioritising far right anti-Islam
Tommy Robinson instead of extremists.
The misconduct hearing heard how he had posted about the Windrush petition, retweeting Lenny Henry to say: “Firstly, sign the ting”.
This was said to have been interpreted as a racist comment against the Caribbean community, but Pitt claimed ‘ting’ that the investigating activist probing was a “well-known young people.
He also shared a video of a camel being slaughtered with machetes during the festival of Eid, with the comment: “Religion of peace.”
In another tweet, sharing a video of a violent attack against a child, He wrote: “If I was sitting in that waiting room I would f*** that geezer up, no questions asked. Scum.” But he said he would never act on it, the hearing heard.
The 12 posts went unnoticed amid some 6,000 tweets over six years – until a member of the public alerted the police watchdog.
Three tweets were said to have been posted while on duty. However, he contested this, saying he had been on a break. He accepted that the tweets were all made from his account and sent by him, admitting he was regretful of what he had posted.
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