PC used police computer to track girlfriend’s admirer

A “CONTROLLING” police officer who banned girlfriends from talking to men, wearing red nail polish or accepting Tesco deliveries if he was not at home, has been sacked.

PC Wayne Hodge, 38, closely monitored two girlfriends’ movements and became jealous if he saw them around other men. It was alleged that he banned one – referred to as Ms T – from filling up her water bottle at the gym because she might be near men.

Ms T told a disciplinary panel that Hodge also told her she could not paint her nails red because it “gave men the wrong idea” and that he would regularly restrict her movements to avoid male contact entirely. She was also not allowed to have Tesco deliveries if she was alone at home.

When flowers were delivered to her at work, Ms T rang her boyfriend to ask if they were from him. But he told her: “If you bring those f------ flowers home I’ll f------ stamp all over them.”

Dressed in his police uniform, Hodge visited the florist’s to demand the contact details for the man who had bought the bouquet. He called the man, lying that Ms T had been stalked in the past and was distressed. A friend of Ms T tipped off his bosses at Avon and Somerset Constabulary about his behaviour and he was suspended.

But when Hodge returned to his job in January 2017 he began tracking the movements of a new partner, a fellow police worker referred to as Ms D, using the police computer system.

Mark Ley Morgan, the barrister representing Avon and Somerset Constabulary, said: “He used police systems while he was on duty to check where Ms D was. He told her that a lot of his behaviour was due to anxiety. We do not accept there is any medical evidence to substantiate this, and that even if there was, we say it is no excuse whatsoever for his behaviour.”

A panel at the police HQ in Portishead, Somerset, found he had breached standards of honesty and integrity, authority, respect and courtesy, finding it discreditable conduct.

Alex Lock, chairman of the panel said: “We found it was an abuse of position for a police officer to obtain customer details from the florist. It was an entirely personal matter and PC Hodge was dishonest to present it otherwise. In relation to Ms D, all the factual allegations were supported by the text messages we had seen.” Hodge was dismissed without notice.