Police officer faces misconduct hearing after ‘using carrot label to buy 12 donuts for 7p’

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A Cambridgeshire Police officer will go before a misconduct committee after being accused of using a carrot label to attempt to buy a £9.95 box of 12 Krispy Kreme donuts for seven pence.

Pc Simon Read allegedly stuck a barcode for carrots on the donuts before attempting to pay for them at a self-service checkout. The incident is said to have taken place on 10 February at Tesco Extra in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

Police papers, seen by the PA news agency, indicate Pc Read’s alleged breach of professional standards is “so serious that dismissal would be justified”.

He is accused of entering the supermarket while in uniform and still on duty, and selecting a cardboard tray of 12 Krispy Kreme donuts priced at £9.95. The box is believed to have had a clearly-placed barcode already on it. 

Pc Read is then said to have gone to the fruit and vegetable aisle and used the self-service scales to obtain a barcode sticker for carrots with a price of seven pence.

It is claimed he then stuck the carrot barcode on the donut tray and scanned it at a self-service checkout so that he was charged seven pence for the donuts instead of £9.95.

Pc Read is accused of acting dishonestly and without integrity by knowingly paying seven pence for the donuts when he knew he should have paid £9.95.

Official papers seen ahead of the two-day hearing said the officer’s alleged behaviour “brings discredit upon the police service and undermines confidence in it because a reasonable member of the public, aware of all the facts, would be justifiably appalled that a police officer had acted dishonestly and without integrity”. 

The disciplinary hearing will take place in Peterborough from 25 November.

Additional reporting by Press Association