Inspector shared police information on WhatsApp

Yahoo

31-03-2025

A former police inspector shared sensitive information with members of the public on WhatsApp, a disciplinary hearing has found.
Ian Walpole also took pictures on his personal phone of intelligence reports and other confidential information from police computers.
He apologised and resigned from Humberside Police in January after admitting his actions, which dated back to 2017.
A tribunal in Goole decided he had breached rules on confidentiality with his behaviour amounting to gross misconduct and he would have been dismissed from the force without warning had he not already left.
The hearing was told Walpole sent a number of messages to the WhatsApp group detailing incidents including fatal crashes, deaths, missing people and wanted criminals.
Many of the posts were accompanied with screenshots from police computers showing the personal details of the people involved.
When confronted by investigating officers, Walpole said the group chat was private and was "a way of expressing the pressure he was under".
He claimed the photographs of police computer screens on his mobile phone were "capturing information for policing purposes".
Giving her findings, Chief Constable Judi Heaton said Walpole had misused confidential police information "repeatedly, wilfully and recklessly".
She added his actions had undermined trust with the public and had caused "reputational harm to Humberside Police".
Walpole, who did not attend the meeting and had no legal representation, has 10 days to appeal against the ruling.
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