WPC sacked for racist rant wins job back – and £15,000 in lost wages
‘She was lucky the staff did not hear’
A POLICE officer sacked after a drunken racist outburst at an Indian takeaway has sparked outrage after being handed back her job.
PC Katie Barratt, 23, admitted calling the restaurant staff ‘ f*** ing P*** s’ but claimed that it was ‘not the worst kind of racism’.
She was sacked for gross misconduct but appealed to an independent panel which has reinstated her and ordered for her to receive £15,000 in back pay.
It labelled her dismissal from Northumbria Police ‘unreasonable’ and said she should instead get a final warning.
One campaign group said her remarks were ‘utterly unacceptable and reprehensible’ and warned her return to uniform will damage the credibility of police. The officer was sacked after a misconduct hearing last June where she admitted saying the slurs after a ‘work Christmas jolly’ with colleagues in December 2017. The hearing heard that on a visit to the Spice of Punjab takeaway in Newcastle she said ‘I wish these f****** P*** would hurry up with my pizza’ and also referred to staff as ‘n******’.
Northumbria Police fought to block her return, claiming her comments could ‘seriously damage’ the force’s reputation and ‘confirm a stereotype held in some communities about the police’.
But an independent three-person panel downgraded the punishment to a final written warning on Monday – allowing her to resume working at her ‘dream job’. PC Barratt wept as the panel’s chairman Dorian Lovell-Park wished her luck in resuming her career – after saying they ‘roundly condemned’ her comments and agreed with the original finding of gross misconduct. The hearing was told PC Barratt had been bought ‘plenty of drinks’ by colleagues when she went to the takeaway at about 10.30pm on December 14 2017.
She ordered a pizza and sat with two other officers, PC Corey Bradley and PC Alex Downs, before drunkenly berating staff for taking too long over her order. PC Bradley alleged that she used the word ‘P***’ as many as six times but Barratt insisted she used it twice. She accepted ‘it was only luck’ that nobody bar her colleagues heard her. Her barrister Guy Ladenburg said the outburst was an ‘abomination’ but added she had come from a ‘ police family’ and deserved a second chance.
He pleaded with the panel to not ruin her career because of a ‘drunken indiscretion in a kebab shop after far too much to drink’.
Mr Ladenburg added she had ‘not touched’ alcohol since that night and that she felt she should not have been sacked ‘because it is not the worst kind or racism’.
Steven Reid, for Northumbria Police, said: ‘ She knew she was being racist ... her prejudice on that evening leaked out.’ The force will now have to give PC Barratt back pay from the day she was sacked. Her annual salary is thought to be above £20,000.
Barratt, who joined the force as a student constable in 2016, told the hearing last year: ‘I’m really sorry for what I’ve done. It’s my dream job. It’s all I wanted to do since I was little.’ She will complete additional equality and diversity training before resuming her role. A spokesman for antiracism group Hope Not Hate said: ‘[Her] comments were utterly unacceptable and reprehensible.’
Superintendent Sav Patsalos, from the force, said: ‘We acknowledge the decision of the independent panel and will now take some time to review its findings.’