Police chief broke rules to access lover's explicit e-mails
(File photo dated 01/03/2002 of Terry Grange, former chief constable of Dyfed-Powys Police.)
Terry Grange, former chief constable of Dyfed-Powys Police
A chief constable risked a serious security breach by insisting that sexually explicit e-mails from his mistress be allowed to pass through his force’s computer firewall.
Terry Grange retired abruptly last year as Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys Police a week after the Independent Police Complaints Commission began an investigation into allegations of misconduct and abuse of expenses.
The commission's report was published today and upholds a number of allegations against Mr Grange – finding that he pressed a junior employee to change computer security settings to admit his lover’s messages.
The report said: “The implications for allowing such access is clearly a breach of security and could have allowed force systems to be contaminated by computer viruses with serious consequences.”
Mr Grange had an affair with a woman identified in the report as Ms A between November 2006 and August 2007.
Two months after the relationship ended she sent a written complaint to an IPCC commissioner alleging that she went with Mr Grange to official meetings, that he claimed for romantic dinners on police expenses and that they exchanged “sexually explicit” and “politically sensitive” e-mails.
A trawl of the force’s e-mail archive found 102 messages from Mr Grange to Ms A. The content of the messages was not retained, they had subject headings ranging from “visits to Wales” to “Irish sausages” and “Hindu cows”.
Investigators obtained print-outs of some of the e-mails from Ms A and confirmed that they “contain inappropriate comments and sexual innuendo”.
The report added: “The e-mails in possession of the IPCC are inappropriate and could be extremely damaging to Mr Grange and the police service if they found their way into the public domain. Mr Grange has clearly breached force policy by use of the force computer system to send inappropriate e-mails and his actions and content of the e-mails would clearly bring the force into disrepute.”
The commission also concluded that Mr Grange had misused his corporate Barclaycard to claim for hotels, meals and drinks with Ms A. He argued that he submitted personal cheques to cover those elements of expenditure but had made “a right pigs” of filling out the claim form.
Investigators reported: “The explanations provided by Mr Grange for these anomalies are unconvincing and lack credibility. Whatever the truth of the matter, Mr Grange has made a financial benefit from double-claiming expenses. He has also misused his corporate Barclaycard.”
The inquiry also found that there were no records of how much annual leave Mr Grange took and called on Dyfed-Powys police authority to tighten up procedures on senior officers’ expenses, duty commitments and holiday entitlement.
Mr Grange was interviewed under caution during the inquiry but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to press criminal charges against him.
Because he has resigned from the police he is not subject to police misconduct procedures.
Tom Davies, the IPCC Commissioner for Wales, said: “This is a sad end to a long and distinguished career of a senior police officer.” (timesonline)
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