I was furious over cop’s ‘sexist’ email, insists police chief
A SENIOR police officer was ‘furious’ after being told of an email from a colleague saying that armed female officers should not be deployed together, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.
Alleging discrimination, Rhona Malone, 43, claimed women in Police Scotland were ‘set up to fail’.
Inspector Keith Warhurst is alleged to have said in an email female firearms officers should not be on duty without a man.
The email read: ‘I’m going to plunge in with both feet and open myself up to being accused of being sexist.
‘For operational reasons I don’t want to see 2 x female officers deployed together when there are sufficient male staff on duty. This is based on my experience in the firearms and routine policing environment.’ Giving evidence to the hearing yesterday, Superintendent Steven Irvine described his frustration upon seeing that the email had been sent by Temporary Inspector Warhurst, calling it a ‘really, really poor choice of language’ and ‘not the values I would want to project to the department’.
In his witness statement, Mr Irvine said: ‘When I was informed about the email I was furious about it. I had come across to armed policing with the objective of changing the culture. This email did not reflect the senior management team’s position regarding deployment of officers.’
However, Mr Irvine added: ‘Keith Warhurst had made a genuine mistake and his email was totally inappropriate but I did not consider that this warranted a public humiliation of him. I considered that the actions we took were proportionate to the situation and the immediate impact that it had.’
Mr Irvine told the tribunal that Mr Warhurst’s explanation of what he meant by the email ‘certainly wasn’t overly sexist’ and that ‘no officers suffered a detriment’. He added that further action
‘Poor choice of language’
wasn’t taken against Mr Warhurst because Mr Irvine ‘wanted to create a culture where people could learn from their mistakes’.
It was decided that Mr Warhurst might attend an equality or diversity course. However, Mr Irvine admitted Police Scotland was offering no such course in 2018.
Previously, Mr Warhurst told the tribunal: ‘The purpose was not to discriminate, my email was very badly worded and I got the wrong message across. All of my comments were off the mark. I’ve been in situations with a female officer where they have de-escalated situations when a male involved might have escalated things further.’
The tribunal continues.