A FORMER Hampshire police officer has been dismissed without notice.

PC Olivia Lucas who "created a web of lies and deceit" has been found to have committed gross misconduct at a public hearing.

She resigned from the force shortly before her hearing on Monday and failed to attend the proceedings.

Lucas was alleged to have breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour in relation to Honesty and Integrity and Discreditable Conduct.

A panel found all allegations proven and ruled that Lucas would have been dismissed without notice had she still been serving.

She has now been placed on the police 'Barred List'.

The allegations put before the panel were that between October 2018 and July 2019, she was dishonest and behaved in a manner likely to bring discredit on the police service in that:

  • She was dishonest to colleagues/supervisors about having a medical condition and receiving treatment at a specialist hospital. She sent a member of the public, a retired police officer, a copy of a fabricated County Court Judgement adversely implicating another serving officer whom she knew.
  • She sent the same member of the public a surveillance log that was purportedly from ‘Imperial Security’ showing another serving officer whom she knew being surveilled whilst off duty when that log was a fabrication.
  • She had composed false messages purporting to come from an officer within the Professional Standards Department and provided the same member of the public with a number of screenshots of those messages adversely (and falsely) implicating innocent serving officers.
  • She dishonestly told the member of public that she had received a number of offensive / threatening messages from various serving officers when in fact she had composed them herself either in manuscript or using an application on her mobile phone.

Panel chair. Jane Jones said the long-term deception of her colleagues and the force and the huge level of investment into her fantasy was done for her own purposes and with no regard for those drawn into her web of lies.

The level of meanness and malice was disturbing, behaving with a total lack of empathy, meddling and toying with personal relationships as well as taking advantage of the decency and compassion of her colleagues.

She added that the public would be appalled to know what Mrs Lucas had done, describing her behaviour as truly disgraceful conduct.

Assistant Chief Constable Ben Snuggs added: “Honesty and integrity is one of the key cornerstones of policing. We expect every member of our workforce to be honest in their interactions with everyone all the time.

"This is as true in our relationships within the force as much as it is in our interactions with those outside it.

“This officer went to extraordinary lengths to create a web of deceit and exploited the trust and kindness of her supervisors and colleagues, who even carried out fundraising events to raise money for her given she purported to be suffering from a serious illness.

“She also undertook an orchestrated, calculated and vindictive campaign to destroy the relationships and reputations of innocent colleagues due to her selfish fixated behaviour.

“I would echo the Panel’s comments that one of most disturbing aspects of this case is the complete lack of respect she showed to the very real lived experiences of cancer patients and survivors for whom this type of scenario is a sombre reality.”