Spared sack, sergeant in anti-Semitic pizza ‘prank’

A POLICE sergeant narrowly avoided the sack after dangling a slice of pepperoni pizza in front of a Jewish colleague, causing a piece of pork to fall into her takeaway box.

Gary Jacobs left the constable feeling ‘mocked for her faith’ by the prank, which happened at a police station as officers were about to start their shift.

He accepted that the incident in March took place, but denied it amounted to gross misconduct. However, Jacobs, 48, was found guilty yesterday and given a final written warning. He was told he had come ‘perilously close’ to losing his job.

A panel heard the Jewish officer, referred to as PC A, was sitting at a table with the sergeant eating pizza ordered for the team at Crawley police station in West Sussex. They were finishing off their meal and were packing away their leftover pizza slices into boxes when Sgt Jacobs approached hers and dangled the pepperoni slice over it.

When he dropped the pepperoni, he said ‘whoops... I’ll eat the incriminating evidence’ before picking it off PC A’s chicken pizza and eating it, the panel heard. They were told Sgt Jacobs was aware the PC observed a kosher diet and had even been told by other officers not to pack away her pizza with the others.

Amy Clarke, representing Sussex Police, said: ‘The conduct was utterly unacceptable and was much more serious than a misguided attempt at humour. We say that as a sergeant, who had specific responsibility for supervising the police constable, he was in a position of authority.

‘Sergeant Jacobs knew she maintained a kosher diet and any modicum of common sense would dictate that means you he shouldn’t dangle pork over her food.’

The misconduct hearing at the force’s headquarters in Lewes was told PC A felt she couldn’t challenge the behaviour of her senior officer and was left ‘upset, embarrassed and isolated’.

‘This was utterly unacceptable’