Chief constable faced accusations
POLICE: West Yorkshire’s former chief constable was accused of misusing police resources and making comments of a sexual nature to female staff in the period before he retired from the force.
WEST YORKSHIRE’S former chief constable was accused of misusing police resources and making comments of a sexual nature to female staff in the period before he retired from the force, the county’s crime commissioner has revealed.
The claims made via the force’s anonymous whistleblower reporting system in 2014, the year Mark Gilmore was suspended from his role amid a criminal investigation into his relationship with a leading Northern Irish car dealership, emerged in papers filed at the High Court. No charges were brought against him as a result of the criminal probe.
Mr Gilmore, appointed as West Yorkshire Police’s top officer in 2013, has described the whistleblower allegations as “spurious, anonymous” claims used to stop him returning to his post after his suspension was lifted. As reported in The Yorkshire
Post on Saturday, Mr Gilmore, who had only been in post for 14 months at the time of his suspension, was alleged to have been involved in an “inappropriate relationship” with senior officials from Donnelly Motor Group (DMG). He was also accused of using his professional relationship with DMG to get a better deal when he bought a VW Golf for his son Mark Gilmore Junior in 2014.
The chief constable, who insists he has done nothing wrong, had his suspension lifted in 2015 when Northern Irish prosecutors said he and eight others, including the owner of DMG, had no criminal case to answer.
After commissioning a separate investigation into Mr Gilmore’s conduct, West Yorkshire’s crime commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson then decided he had a case to answer for misconduct, meaning the man he appointed in 2013 would potentially face an embarrassing public hearing. Mr Gilmore retired from policing in August 2016, meaning he was no longer subject to misconduct proceedings. He is applying for a judicial review into what he says is the failure to make a decision on whether he has a misconduct case to answer.
In documents filed at the Administrative Court, the PCC said claims were made against Gilmore via the Professional Standards Department’s anonymous reporting system on February 14, 2014, and August 7, 8 and 9 the same year.
Among the claims, denied by Mr Gilmore, were that he “treated colleagues inappropriately, swearing and throwing items at staff in rage”, and “made comments of a sexual nature to female staff ”.
It is also alleged that he “misused police resources, asking staff to drive and wait for him at social events not connected to work, and pick his wife up from the airport”.
And he was accused of bypassing the official procurement process “in order to employ a friend into a senior management role”.
The PCC said that in August 2015, Mr Gilmore was given formal notice of the allegations and responded in October, “requesting further particulars and denying the allegations in strong terms”.
[He] made comments of a sexual nature to female staff. One of the anonymous whistleblower allegations made in 2014.