Full evidence from disgraced chief constable’s misconduct hearing won’t be made public yet due to potential criminal charges
The police, fire and crime commissioner’s office has said circumstances are ‘unique’ due to the Crown Prosecution Service’s involvement
By Sarah Ward
The full evidence gathered for the misconduct hearing of Northamptonshire’s sacked chief constable Nick Adderley, will not be made public as yet due to possible criminal charges.
Last month Adderley, 57, was removed from post and barred from ever serving in the police service again, as the catalogue of lies he has been spinning for more than a decade were exposed at his gross misconduct hearing.
Claims that he had served in the Falklands; that he rose to become a Commander in the navy after a decade-long career and that he trained at the country’s top naval college were all debunked at the hearing, at the end of which Adderley was denounced as being ‘brazenly dishonest.’
The hearing established he had only been in the navy for two years in the mid 1980s and had not been to war. The Falklands medal he had been sporting since around 2009 was also declared a fake and he had not trained at the Britannia Royal Naval College as he had claimed.
Adderley joined Northamptonshire Police in 2018 and had written a number of lies on the submitted CV which was used to help appoint him.
During the five-day hearing the 479 page evidence bundle referenced throughout the hearing was not made public, instead it was only seen by the panel led by the legally qualified chair Callum Cowx, Adderley’s defence team and the lawyer representing the Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s (OFPCC), which had appointed Adderley.
The bundle was made up of evidence from investigations and interviews by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, as well as information compiled by the OFPCC.
References throughout the opening note by the OFPCC’s lawyer John Beggs KC ( which was made available publicly) show that the bundle contained notes written by the director who first rumbled Adderley’s false story; the CV and application form he filled in in 2018; emails to media officers at Northants Police in which he signed off press releases which made reference to his bogus Falklands service and also texts between himself and then police, fire and crime commissioner Stephen Mold. A footnote on one page of the opening note details a text from September last year from Stephen Mold to Adderley, in which he states: “Nick, it is shit.’ In the text Mold confirmed Adderley had been hired on the basis of his policing achievements rather than his naval service.
The full transcript of Adderley’s interview by the IOPC in late October 2023 is also included in the evidence bundle. There are also the emails between the IOPC and the Ministry of Defence in relation to the fiasco concerning Adderley’s fake Falklands medal. The IOPC had sent the medal in an evidence bag to the MOD for checking, but incredibly the medal has now gone missing
NN Journal asked the Northamptonshire OFPCC following the hearing to have access to all evidence and on Friday we were given this response from chief executive Jonny Bugg:
“The circumstances of this case are somewhat unique as the matter remains with the CPS for consideration. With this in mind, we have discussed the matter with prosecution and defence lawyers and with the panel chair and we will not be issuing the complete bundle at this stage. However, there has already been significant material provided to the media as the hearings have been held in public. The Panel’s detailed Regulation 43 report published this week also provided a full ruling on the matter.”
In April the IOPC, which is responsible for investigation complaints against the police , handed a file to the CPS for consideration, outlining that a crime may have been committed by Adderley. The CPS will have the final decision on whether charges will be brought against the former chief constable and as yet no announcement has been made.
As NN Journal exclusively revealed back in March, Adderley is also under investigation by Staffordshire Police in relation to possible fraud related to the maintenance of police vehicles. On the day Adderley was sacked the IOPC said the investigation was ongoing.
In the regulation 43 report published by the panel last Friday, the panel gave a full write up of the outcome of the misconduct hearing, laying out the facts agreed and those in dispute and giving its analysis of the evidence and how it came to its conclusion.
Callum Cowx said his panel had kept an open mind when determining each allegation against Adderley, but in summing up he declared some statements made by the former chief constable were ‘pure fantasy’, ‘highly implausible,’ and that Adderley was ‘knowingly untruthful’.
In June the OFPCC said ‘something had clearly gone wrong’ in Adderley’s vetting and a review was being done which will be made public this month.
One of the main reasons that they do not want to release all the documents is simple. There are too many people involved who have yet to be questioned. Who are they? Stephen Mold previous Commissioner, Nicci Marzec and certainly Conservative councillors on the Police, Fire and Crime panel who were complicit in supporting Mold without questioning what they were up to.
The recent revelation about the Masters degree from Cambridge and the lack of BOTH application forms when he joined give rise to why the IOPC want to try to bury this as completed now. Much much more story still to dig into here and reviewing the documents with a keen eye will reveal this.