Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PC sacked for bust-up with wife’s toyboy love
Firefighter ‘scared’ by confrontation at home
A POLICEMAN who terrified his wife’s toyboy lover when he confronted him has been sacked.
PC Christopher Parnell, 48, was accused of visiting Robert Billings, 28, and demanding to see texts.
Mr Billings admitted to Parnell that he had sex with wife Kath, 49, in a Morrisons car park. And he told a police disciplinary hearing yesterday: “I didn’t like his mannerisms. They were very aggressive. I was scared.”
Parnell offered his resignation during the session but was later dismissed for gross misconduct.
The panel was earlier told the affair between Mr Billings and Mrs Parnell began last summer.
Mr Billings, a builder and retained firefighter, had informed North Yorkshire Police of Parnell’s visit to his home. The panel heard the Harrogate-based officer, from Boroughbridge, learned of his wife’s affair from a local woman.
She also told him Mr Billings allegedly threatened to have Mrs Parnell “buried on the moors” after news of their affair became public. The woman claimed he told another woman in Boroughbridge: “She doesn’t know who she is dealing with. I’m from Leeds. I can pay £1,500 and have her buried on the moors.”
Parnell and his wife were married for 16 years but are now separated. As well as misconduct, he faced charges relating to undeclared business interests and unlawfully accessing police records.
Offering his resignation yesterday, his barrister, Michael Rawlinson, told the panel: “He has found these proceedings exceptionally difficult from a personal point of view.
“In order to preserve his own dignity and the dignity of his family and the office of constable and North Yorkshire Police, he doesn’t wish to prolong or elongate these proceedings.”
But later in the hearing at the force’s Northallerton HQ, chairman of the disciplinary panel Tom Mitchell said Parnell had committed gross misconduct, which amounted to immediate dismissal.
Mr Mitchell concluded: “The only appropriate sanction available in this case is dismissal without notice.”
ON VISIT FROM PARNELL