A lazy police inspector could not be bothered to carry out checks on detainees in the cells so he filled out paperwork saying they were 'sleeping' when he went to see them, a tribunal has found.

Inspector Calvin Owen, now retired, was guilty of gross misconduct in his duties with Gloucestershire police, the panel ruled after a four day misconduct hearing.

Barrister Stephen Morley, for Gloucestershire Police, said Insp Owen had carried out thousands of PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence) checks on detainees in his career but things changed when the custody suite was moved further away from his office.

"He did them when it was easy and he just had to walk down the stairs," said Mr Morley. "But when the custody suite was moved he didn't do it because he didn't want to have to keep going to the suite, which is a 15 minute drive.

"He denied these detainees the right to legal representation and the reviews were not completed properly. For an inspector with Mr Owen's experience not to do this is not just sloppy, it is dishonest.

"It is a pattern of deliberately not doing what he should be doing."

"He is an inspector with many years service and he knew better."

The inspector also committed misconduct by using another officer's log-in details to reset the custody detention clock - which meant he avoided having to explain why he had not conducted full and proper PACE reviews at set times, the barrister said.

"If he had to ring the suite, the staff would have been aware he hadn't visited - so to save that awkward phone call he used another sergeant's details to reset the clock to make it appear that the review had been conducted.

"He marked detainees as asleep during reviews that he did not carry out. It was guesswork or assumption as he did not know if they were asleep or not and this was dishonest and lacked integrity. An officer of his standing knows this. He is a public servant and paid to do a job that he wasn't doing."

The inspector's legal representative at the hearing, Mark Ley-Morgan, argued that bringing misconduct charges was too heavy handed of the police.

All that was necessary was for someone to 'have a word in Mr Owen's ear' when they first became aware he was behaving this way in 2015, Mr Ley-Morgan submitted.

He stated that other officers and two inspectors were made aware of how Mr Owen was conducting checks but "did nothing for several months."

He accused the police of 'making desperate efforts to shoehorn Mr Owen's behaviour into an allegation of dishonesty and lack of integrity.'

"They know all of this is just a performance related issue and they are stretched to breaking point to squeeze it into anything else." he said.

Mr Ley-Morgan claimed senior officers were fully aware of Mr Owen's method for PACE reviews and should have dealt with the matter when it first arose.

"The facts are not in dispute. It is agreed that in early 2015 all the custody officers were aware of how he was conducting reviews. He wasn't visiting the suite, or speaking to the detainees, or checking if they were asleep.

"If everyone knew that, this assertion that Mr Owen was trying to sneak under the radar is utter nonsense and so inconsistent with the facts" he told the panel.

"At the time it was happening it wasn't seen as dishonest or gross misconduct by senior officers. It wasn't even serious enough to pick up the phone to speak to Mr Owen about his performance. It was just 'don't worry about it, that is just Calvin.'

"It should have been dealt with in 2015 as a performance issue. It could have been dealt with at a misconduct meeting with a written warning and we wouldn't be here now."

Mr Ley-Morgan called it an "abject failure by several members of the senior police force."

With regard to the use of another officer's password, Mr Ley-Morgan said that was not in dispute but the inspector had been given the other officer's password and allowed to use it.

"Although passwords should not be shared it does not amount to gross misconduct under the umbrella of dishonest behaviour because the password was not being used dishonesty, it was given to him," he said.

The panel found Mr Owen guilty of gross misconduct on both allegations.

The chair, Paul Cadman, said it was a pattern of behaviour.

"He was an experienced officer, he had been in a custody suite and was aware of the pressures.

"We find this charge is proved and the behaviour is in breach of standards of honesty and integrity."

Mr Cadman said the second charge, in relation to the use of another officer's password, was "interlinked with the first charge."

"We cannot establish whether the other office gave Mr Owen the password. But the use of the password is deliberate. It means he could avoid the custody suite where detainees could be awake and he would have to conduct a proper review."

Two other charges were brought, one of which was admitted by Mr Owen, that he gave his police email address out to commercial organisations and that he used the Force Computer System to access the internet for personal reasons.

The panel did not find either of these reached the level of gross misconduct but found they were a breach of duties and responsibilities.

Mr Cadman concluded that if Mr Owen had been a serving police officer he would have been dismissed. As he is now retired he will be barred from any work in the police force in the future, the tribunal ruled.