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Jul 10, 2023

WPC faces sack for showing lewd snap a detective sent her

She later claimed she had felt embarrassed and upset at receiving the "unwarranted picture".

Sarah Middleton, presenting counsel in the case before the Humberside Police misconduct panel, said: "Despite being told not to, she had shown colleagues at Goole police station a picture… causing a number of them upset and distress."

The panel was told Humberside PC Jackson had "not done anything to warrant the picture being sent" to her while on duty at the station by a detective constable – who cannot be named for legal reasons.

After PC Jackson received the image on her phone on September 21, 2016, she showed it to a sergeant, saying, "It was unacceptable, she wanted it to stop, but did not want to take matters any further".

The sergeant told her not to show it to anyone. But she was then seen showing the picture to colleagues.

One said: "She was laughing and joking about it and seemed to find it humorous."

Sarah Barlow, defending, said the image was sent to Jackson via text, and she had shown it to her colleague PC Rachel Eyre because she had requested to see it.

But PC Eyre insisted: "They were laughing about something. I came into the office and asked them what they were laughing about.

"They said ‘You don't want to know’. I did not ask any more questions because I knew they would not tell me there and then. But I knew Kate would tell me later."

Two days later the pair were out with a third officer when PC Jackson took out her phone.

PC Eyre told the Goole hearing: "We were sitting having a coffee when PC Jackson stuck her mobile phone out and said, ‘This is what we were laughing about the other night’.

"She held the mobile phone out in front of my face. I was quite shocked. I did not expect to see that on a phone screen.

"I was just really taken aback. She did not really seem too bothered. She did not seem upset or anything. She said she knew who had sent the image and it was a self-portrait, so to speak. I felt really awkward and really embarrassed."

PC Jackson had returned to work only seven days earlier, having been off sick after claiming she had been assaulted while on duty at Scunthorpe General Hospital.

She claimed she was told by doctors she was "lucky to be alive" after being trapped between the wall of a hospital cubicle and a bunk bed by a man high on drink and drugs. She was helping restrain the man after she and PC Tim Lee had escorted him to hospital.

But after the incident, PC Lee told a colleague: "Kate was outside the room chatting up a doctor." He told the hearing that she was not injured and they had gone out for a McDonald's burger afterwards.

PC Jackson, who wore a sand-coloured top and her hair tied back in a bun, was later accused of gross misconduct for fabricating the assault and injuries sustained.

She denies the allegations. The hearing continues.

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