A misconduct panel has heard that a police constable direct messaged a woman via Instagram after using a confidential police database to track her down. It is reported that he used the social media app to follow her, and directly send her flirty emojis.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said that the allegations were made by a legal representative for Derbyshire Police at the beginning of a three-day misconduct hearing at the police’s headquarters in Ripley.

After attending a call-out in 2021, the police constable, identified as PC Jack Harrison is alleged to have followed a woman’s car whilst in his police car. He followed the woman after witnessing her leave a Co-op store in the area.

The hearing was told the officer then carried out a check on the woman’s car via the Police National Computer (PNC). The PNC is an information database for police officers, and other agencies, and provides information about the owner of a car.

Harrison claims that he had followed her car and carried out a PNC check because he felt the driving was suspicious and believed that the vehicle may have been stolen. Yet, he did not attempt to stop her car or make contact with the driver after doing this.

It is claimed that the constable used the information gained, including the woman’s name, provided by the PNC check to subsequently follow this woman on Instagram later that day. He claims that she appeared on Instagram as a “suggested follower”.

This comes shortly after the release of the Casey Report. While the report inquired into institutional issues in the Metropolitan Police, a different force, it contained information which is relevant to PC Harris’ alleged misconduct. A section regarding the abuse of a position for a sexual purpose in the report states that:

‘… [it] is the most common form of corruption it deals with. In 2020, this accounted for 25% of referrals and almost 60% of corruption investigations nationally. They also observe that the scale of abuse of position for a sexual purpose, and sexual misconduct, is likely to be vastly underrepresented.’

When the woman realised that PC Harrison had followed her, she discovered that months before the incident in question, he had used Instagram to direct message her a flame emoji. This was not the only contact he had made with the woman as he had also sent her a heart eyes emoji as a reaction to one of her posts on the social media app.

The woman complained to Derbyshire police that PC Harrison’s alleged actions of physically and virtually following the woman were “weird and creepy”.

An independent panel must decide, based on a balance of probabilities, whether the allegation is a true record of the incident. If proven true, the panel will determine the appropriate punishment for PC Harrison.

PC Harrison denies any wrongdoing and the hearing continues.