Police leader made sexual remark about PC's widow - tribunal

A police leader said he would like to privately comfort the widow of a constable who was killed in the line of duty, a disciplinary tribunal has heard.

John Apter's remark about Lissie Harper, the widow of PC Andrew Harper, had an "obvious sexual connotation", the panel heard.

He denies three allegations of a sexual nature while he was chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales between 2018 and 2022.

Mr Apter, who left Hampshire Constabulary in 2021, is also charged with touching a police officer's bottom and making a sexual comment to a federation member of staff.

The allegations first emerged at the end of 2021, after which Mr Apter was suspended from the force and his chairman role.

Barrister Cecily White, presenting the case, said Lissie Harper was collecting a posthumous award on behalf of her late husband at a ceremony in 2020 when Mr Apter remarked: "I’d like to comfort her in my hotel room.”

PC Harper, from Wallingford in Oxfordshire, was killed while responding to a bike theft in Berkshire in 2019. Three teenagers were jailed for his manslaughter in 2020.

Mr Apter's disciplinary tribunal also heard in 2021 he touched a police officer's bottom and whispered: "Is that OK?".

However, he told investigators he had not flirted with the woman and had only scratched her back, the hearing was told.

Barrister Ms White said Mr Apter told a pregnant woman in 2019: "Maybe you'll get a bum now."

However, the woman concerned said she felt there had been a "witch hunt" against Mr Apter.

Giving evidence, the former police federation staff member said she was "99.9% certain" that the remark was made by another officer.

She said: "It didn't mean anything to me. It didn't bother me. There was never any banter like that from John Apter."

She accepted that she may have described him and the other officer as "creepy, cringey uncle-types" when interviewed by an investigator, but said she did not mean it "in that way".

Ms White told the hearing at Hampshire police headquarters in Eastleigh that his "unfortunate attitude towards women" was a common thread to the allegations, which amounted to gross misconduct.

She said both comments were heard by a former police federation worker, Jamie Simpson, who later complained about the "blatant hypocrisy" of senior federation staff.

Mr Simpson said: "Some of the things I have overheard the same people say about women associated with the organisation, even the widow of an officer, is sickening," the tribunal heard.

Previously, a criminal inquiry into the claims was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Mr Apter, who had a 30-year police career, chaired Hampshire Police Federation from 2010 and the national federation from 2018.

You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.