A Durham Police officer has been cleared of allegations that she used racist language and targeted a colleague over his ethnicity.
PC Sarah Downs, who faced a misconduct hearing over claims she singled out former colleague Lloyd Codling, was found not to have breached professional standards.
The allegations related to alleged incidents during shift briefings at Bishop Auckland Police Station between 2021 and 2022.
PC Codling claimed the comments were made “on numerous occasions” and included remarks such as “you people have a guilty face.” Another allegation involved a missing person report, with allegations PC Downs asked: “has anyone checked his loft.”
The force misconduct panel hearing the case noted that Mr Codling was involved in a separate gross misconduct investigation and had filed a grievance against PC Downs one month after being interviewed over his conduct.
He had previously been dismissed for sexual misconduct towards female colleagues and other breaches of professional standards.
The hearing heard that several witnesses either did not recall the comments or said they did not consider them racist.
One officer told the panel: “We were having a briefing around a current missing person, a female, and Downs said something along the lines of has someone checked in Lloyd’s basement. After we had the briefing we went out in the car and he was complaining about it a lot.” She described it as “low level” and said she did not feel it was necessary to report.
PC Downs’ defence team argued that Mr Codling was “using his ethnicity as a weapon” to distract from his own misconduct hearing.
Her barrister Ben Tighe told the panel that Mr Codling made up the allegations to “create a distraction” and “derail” a separate investigation into his own conduct.
The panel found that the evidence did not prove the allegations on the balance of probabilities.
They noted that Mr Codling had the greatest respect for his sergeants and inspector, and found it “incredible” that he did not report any comments at the time.
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The panel also said it was “inherently improbable” that comments described as racist could have gone unnoticed by other officers present.
The panel concluded that the appropriate authority had not proven any of the allegations and found no breaches of the professional standards.
PC Downs will not face disciplinary action following the hearing.
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