Force’s HQ ‘used as love pad’ for top cops’ affairs
Bedrooms at a scandal-hit police force’s headquarters were turned into ‘love pads’ by senior officers to carry on affairs with colleagues, it was claimed yesterday.
The apartments were supposed to be for exhausted constables who work around the clock.
But they were used so often by bosses at Northumbria Police having extramarital relationships that rank and file officers nicknamed them ‘the love pads’, a tribunal heard.
Assistant Chief Constable Greg Vant, whose affair with secretary Juliet Bains is said to have involved flirtatious messages about ‘nipples with tassels’, is one of those claimed to have used the apartments for this purpose.
The claim emerged at the employment tribunal brought by denise Aubrey, Northumbria Police’s former head of legal services. she alleges she was sacked after being asked to help cover up extra- marital affairs and was also subjected to sexism and bullying.
The tribunal has heard of a string of relationships which were allegedly covered up to protect senior officers.
Giving evidence yesterday, Bryn Jones, a retired PC, said he believed mr Vant had used the official rooms on police premises ‘to carry on his exploits’, causing resentment among colleagues.
It was long suspected that the accommodation facilities, behind the force’s headquarters, ‘were frequently used by those in senior management to conduct illicit relations – mr Vant being among them’, he said.
‘This became such a joke that they were nicknamed the “love pads”,’ he added.
mr Jones said that office gossip and banter about the pair – who are said to have caused outrage when mrs Bains was spotted stroking mr Vant’s groin in the office – had ‘great humour’.
It was ‘quite the morale-booster’ for people in the force in 2008. ‘There was a lot of pressure about discipline hanging over us then,’ he said. ‘something like this occurred and the gossip became rife. It was quite uplifting for people on the ground, sad as that may be.’
mr Jones said a second alleged extramarital relationship, between former Chief Constable mike Craik and his deputy Carolyn Peacock – which is alleged to have resulted in a punch-up – had also become a ‘standing joke’.
Gossip about mrs Peacock’s husband Jim punching mr Craik at a barbecue was ‘rife’ among officers who knew police had been called to the scene to break up the brawl, he said.
Because records of the punch-up had been swiftly deleted and officers were subsequently told they would be disciplined if they went looking for them, the secrecy over the scandal had led to constant jokes about ‘the incident that never happened’.
mr Jones, 53, claimed that senior officers had told him and his colleagues that reports of the incident were just an unfounded rumour – and warned them that if they tried to search for the log of it they would be reported to the professional standards department.
As a result, officers became fearful of being caught gossiping, and chatter in the break room died down.
However, a number posters of mr Craik had already been defaced by colleagues using marker pens and biros to show him sporting a black eye, mr Jones said.
‘They were removed and there was a threat that anyone caught doing such a thing would be treated as having committed criminal damage,’ he added.
miss Aubrey claims she was unfairly dismissed from the force, where she had worked for 20 years, after being accused in 2013 of gossiping with colleagues about mr Craik’s alleged affair.
she claims she was asked to cover up a number of extramarital affairs, and that the Chief Constable, steve Ashman, exposed her to sexism and bullying.
mr Craik, the Peacocks, mr Vant and mrs Bains all deny the claims made about their personal lives. The tribunal, in North Tyneside, continues.
‘Gossip was rife... it was a standing joke’