The officer made a podcast giving details about a domestic incident he was involved in.

A Surrey officer has been dismissed without notice after he made inappropriate comments on a podcast he uploaded to his personal Spotify account.

The officer, referred to as Officer A due to reporting restrictions, was also found to have breached a condition of a business interest authorisation.

An allegation was made in April 2020 that Officer A had posted inappropriate content on social media. Surrey Police were informed by a member of the public and the content was subsequently removed.

In December 2021, the officer was involved in a non-crime domestic incident with his ex-partner following an argument over child contact. Two weeks later (January 2022) he uploaded a podcast onto Spotify from his account “Fatherhood, Fitness and Figuring it Out”.

Within the podcast he discussed the incident and made a number of inappropriate comments referring to his ex-partner the misconduct panel heard

He additionally used wording which suggested he condones committing criminal acts of domestic abuse the panel was told,

The Panel found this amounted to a breach of Discreditable Conduct.

As he had identified himself as a police officer in the April 2020 podcast, and as a Surrey officer in the introduction of a previous podcast – he was found to have breached the standards of Duties and Responsibilities.

The officer accepted the allegations made against him but said that he had experienced a difficult break-up with his former partner, still proceeding to this day, as well as frustrations regarding his access to their child and this was the context in which he recorded the podcast.

The Panel accepted the officer’s explanation that by the words he used he was not condoning domestic abuse but the impact on the public view may well be different given the ongoing national concern regarding violence against women and girls and the level of mistrust some have with the police in such matters.