At some point, he discovered that the dead officer had a long-term partner but was also having an affair with an officer in another force and had spent the previous evening with them. He also discovered that one of two mobile phones which were in the crashed car contained proof of the other relationship.
So in order to stop the dead man's partner from discovering the affair, he asked a constable on the investigation to destroy the phone, despite knowing that he had a duty to preserve it for the Coroner's court.
The constable did the right thing and reported this. Salter immediately admitted everything. A misconduct committed ordered him to resign. A Chief Constable's review upheld this. The Police Appeals Tribunal looked at his "exceptional" character evidence (the coroner wrote in to support him, for example) and record, and said he should be reduced to the rank of constable instead. Dorset police went for a judicial review of that decision and had it dismissed. That was upheld in the Court of Appeal at the end of July.
I can see why the judges expressed enormous sympathy to him (were I an employer, I'd hire him), while also seeing why he was dismissed (he'd never be usable as a witness in court, for example).
But it'd be nice if the police showed the same rigour in getting rid of officers who, you know, have misbehaved and killed people.
This entry was originally posted at http://lovingboth.dreamwidth.org/475093.html, because despite having a permanent account, I have had enough of LJ's current owners trying to be evil. Please comment there using OpenID -
