A NEW investigation has revealed the identity of a West Yorkshire Police officer who was sacked in secret by the force for gross misconduct.

Alexander Maloney, who was a serving police constable at the time, was dismissed on June 4, 2018, in a private hearing.

The details weren’t published for another six months, after he had been sentenced for the offences he was dismissed over.

West Yorkshire Police said the hearing was held privately due to ongoing criminal proceedings and that private hearings are “rare and carefully considered”.

The public was kept in the dark over his dismissal due to a loophole in transparency regulations, and an investigation by the New Statesman in collaboration with Newsquest has revealed that 212 dismissals have been hidden from the public since January 2018, one in four police dismissals in that time.

This is despite regulations introduced in 2017 stating that barred officers should be placed on a public list by the College of Policing, except in instances that would cause serious harm. The regulations say that “where a person recorded in the police barred list is a police officer or former police officer… the College must publish the entry relating to that person”.

Alexander Maloney was dragged before the disciplinary board accused of breaching the Standards of Professional Behaviour.

It related to Maloney being arrested in July 2017 for the offence of possession and distribution of indecent images of children.

Police found a number of electronic devices at his home which he owned and when they were seized and examined it was found they contained 53 images of child abuse, two extreme adult pornography films, and 93 images of indicative/borderline child abuse.

A number of the seized electronic devices also contained encryption products and software applications to veil and conceal his online activity.

The hearing concluded that: “In behaving in such a way, you have acted in breach of the Standards of Professional Behaviour relating to discreditable conduct.

“These matters are individually and collectively alleged to amount to gross misconduct, namely a breach of the Standards of Professional Behaviour that, if proved, is so serious that your dismissal would be justified.”

The New Statesman said that according to Leeds Crown Court, he was sentenced in November 2018. And that the force did not publish details of this case due to ongoing proceedings but did not make the matter public after they had concluded either.

Other offences officers were dismissed for include domestic abuse, sexual harassment, racism, colluding with suspects, engaging in sexual relationships with vulnerable people, excessive use of force against suspects and members of the public, breaching Covid-19 restrictions, drink driving and more.

Some of these officers were dismissed in “private” meetings away from the press and public, or were granted anonymity. Others were sacked in supposedly public meetings, or had notices placed online, of which there is no current record.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “The purpose of the Barred List is so that officers accused of serious offences and dismissed from the force cannot seek employment at another force.

“An officer may be dismissed from the force and still be facing criminal proceedings. In such circumstances it could be deemed prejudicial to the outcome of criminal proceedings to publish an officer’s name. This is the case with this officer.

“The name of this officer was not published at the time he was barred because his misconduct hearing was held in private.

“The decision to hold a hearing in private is rare and carefully considered. A decision to hold misconduct hearings in private can be made when an officer is facing criminal proceedings.”

The 2017 regulations state that when an officer is dismissed from the force, their name has to be placed on the College of Policing’s “barred list”. This list is supposed to be public, in order to increase openness and transparency within the police.

However, the list’s current set-up means someone can only be found if a member of the public already knows the name of the officer they are searching for – and many of these names have never been released, despite the College of Police stating they are “generally already in the public domain”.

This is in contrast to the medical profession, the education profession and the legal profession, all of which publish publicly available notices whenever someone is barred that include the name of the person barred.

The New Statesman/Newsquest investigation was able to view 872 names on the list, added in the period from 26 January 2018 to 2 June 2021 – the vast majority of the total. The names were then checked against police websites and public news sources for record of their dismissal. We were unable to find any public record of dismissal for 212 names, almost one in every four on the list.

When contacted, some forces informed us they had published (and since removed) details for 48 of those names at the time – for whatever reason, these were not picked up and widely publicised, and the notices published by the forces have been removed.