PC ‘too sick to work’ was on Majorca cycling trip
A POLICE officer claimed he was too ill to work – while secretly enjoying a cycling holiday in Majorca.
PC Nicholas Corbett skipped work under the pretence of recovering from what he said was a debilitating back injury.
He claimed he could not fly on plane journeys longer than 90 minutes and struggled to ride a bike after a road crash in 2014.
Last October his inspector texted him when he failed to turn up for a shift at Thames Valley Police’s Kidlington headquarters in Oxfordshire.
But Corbett responded to say that he was unable to attend work because of his back injury, which his superiors did not dispute existed.
But his boss soon found out his true location and that he had in fact been relaxing in the sun on the Spanish island, which is a twohour flight from London. Apparently fearing an inquiry, the keen cyclist deleted his account on an app called Strava, which tracks users’ sports activities using GPS mapping.
He resigned but a two-day misconduct hearing was still held at his workplace and concluded that his actions amounted to gross misconduct.
The specific breaches were in connection with statements made by Corbett in evidence to a Police Medical Appeals Board.
The panel concluded Corbett would have been dismissed had he still been a serving officer because of his lack of honesty and integrity. As he is no longer with the force, his details will be placed on the College of Policing’s barred list, preventing him from working in uniform again.
Det Chief Supt Chris Ward, of Thames Valley Police, said: ‘I am sure most of Thames Valley Police would agree there is no room in this organisation for somebody who behaves as this former officer has.
‘Thankfully the vast majority of our staff are hard-working and dedicated. Where we become aware of someone behaving in this way we will be relentless in carrying out a thorough investigation.’
Corbett’s participation in the Masters Tour of Mallorca 2017 was even posted in a blog by one of his colleagues, including a number of photographs .
The four- day road cycle event was held last October and Corbett was part of a team competing in the over-50s category.
The blog reveals that he had also been in the team the previous year when he was telling police bosses in Oxfordshire that he was suffering from a bad back.
The event attracts riders from all over the world and its first day consists of four laps of a 10-mile course with one intermediate sprint and a king of the mountains stage. However, last year Corbett was thrown from his bike after a crash between cyclists, leaving him with an injured hip flexor.