Police panel told to reconsider whether to sack officer who used racial slur

A police misconduct tribunal must reconsider its decision not to sack a former officer who was found to have used a racial slur in conversation at a barbecue while off duty, a judge at the High Court has ruled.

Former police constable Colin Eastop, of the Metropolitan Police, was found to have committed gross misconduct and given a final written warning for three years in February, after using the racial slur while talking about football with colleagues at the event in September 2022.

A misconduct panel found that Mr Eastop, who has since resigned, breached professional standards of authority, respect and courtesy, and discreditable conduct, but not of equality and diversity.

The force challenged the panel’s decisions in the High Court, with its barristers telling a judge on Tuesday that they should be quashed and that Mr Eastop should have been dismissed.

In a ruling, Christopher Ockelton, sitting as a High Court judge, said that Mr Eastop had committed gross misconduct in relation to equality and diversity standards and “set aside” the decision to issue a final written warning, ordering that a new panel reconsider the outcome.

“There is no good reason why it should not also have treated that as a matter of gross misconduct.”

He continued: “The decision on outcome was not lawful and cannot stand.”

The court heard that Mr Eastop, who did not attend the hearing, did not wish to be involved in proceedings, while the panel was not represented.

Sarah Taylor, representing the Metropolitan Police, told the court that Mr Eastop was “immediately challenged” by six officers standing near him when he used the slur.

The court heard that his colleagues were “shocked” by the remark and later gave evidence to say that the incident “was out of context and out of character”.

Ms Taylor continued that Mr Eastop claimed he had said the word “bigger” when discussing football teams and “said he had difficulty pronouncing words when he had a lot of saliva in his mouth”.

In its ruling, the panel – formed by a legally qualified chair, an independent panel member and a Metropolitan Police superintendent, said that Mr Eastop claimed “that he did not say the word ‘n******’ at all, and that this is a case of being misheard”.

While the panel said it had “seen no evidence to show that Pc Eastop’s use of the offensive word was intentional, or not”, the slur was “a word known to all police officers as unacceptable, with no excuses for its use” and that the public’s “confidence in the police service would be affected and potentially undermined” if they knew that it was said.

But they also deemed that the comment was “aimed at no one and, by his account, was unintended”, and that there was “no evidence that this officer is a racist person”.

Reaching its decision to issue a final written warning, the panel said it believed the misconduct process “will have been a salutary lesson” for Mr Eastop and that it had “no concerns about his repeating this conduct”.

But Ms Taylor said: “The decision-making process to reach that decision was legally flawed and irrational and the outcome was irrational, and the only rational outcome was dismissal.”

The barrister continued that there was “no room for doubt as to (the slur’s) discriminatory nature” and that while Mr Eastop’s intention was a “relevant consideration”, it “does not make it not discriminatory”.

She continued: “The panel’s struggle to resolve why he said what he said and whether it was unintended or targeted led them to reduce their assessment of seriousness inappropriately.”

In written submissions, she said that while Mr Eastop had resigned, the force “concluded that it remains in the public interest to pursue this claim in order that a lawful decision is recorded”.