The number of police officers booted out of forces across the UK has surged, with officers being removed for dishonesty, racism, misogyny and sexual misconduct in the wake of Wayne Couzens scandal
Record numbers of rogue police officers are being kicked out of forces, with 735 cops being sacked and barred for life in the last year, figures show.
The total is up 24% on the year before and has rocketed tenfold from the 70 cases recorded between December 2017 and March 2018. According to the College of Policing, 735 officers were placed on the barred list in the year to March 31 2025, up from 593 the previous year.
It comes as police chiefs attempt to clear out bent cops in the wake the Casey Review into the culture of the Metropolitan Police, conducted after serving officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021. The most common reasons given for dismissal were dishonesty (126), discriminatory behaviour (95), unlawful access or disclosure of information (82), inappropriate communications (81), and sexual offences or misconduct (72).
Other cases involved abuse of position for a sexual purpose (31), child sexual offence (21), being in a discriminatory WhatsApp group (45), domestic abuse or harassment (26), and drugs (44). Most of the officers added to the list were constables (640), but chief officer Nick Adderley and two chief superintendents were also among those kicked out.
Former Northamptonshire chief Adderley was found guilty of misconduct in June 2024 for lying about his career. He falsely claimed to have served for 10 years in the navy, when in fact he did two, and that he attended Britannia Royal Naval College, which he did not.
His litany of deceit went as far as wearing a false medal which suggested he had seen active service in the Falklands War, and wearing his brother’s medal implying a tour of Northern Ireland. Another booted out was Det Con Nicholas Henry who was sacked for gross misconduct in January after he was found to have targeted a teenage girl who he later had sex with.
Henry met the youngster on a social networking site when she was 15 and he was 24, beginning a sexual relationship after she turned 16. A misconduct hearing at Gloucestershire police headquarters was told she appeared topless on a webcam for him. Det Con Henry was working for the force’s rape and serious sexual offences unit at the time the investigation began.
During the same period PC Dean Dempster, 35, was kicked out of Greater Manchester Police for sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl while on duty.
Dempster pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the child when responding to a disturbance in Oldham in December 2023 and six counts of making child abuse images. He was jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for nine years and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.
And PC Huw Orphan, 32, was barred from policing after he kicked his wife down the stairs of their home during an argument and caused her to suffer a fractured spine. He had assaulted her on an earlier occasion when he pushed her to the floor and she hit her head on a piece of furniture.
Orphan was a constable with Gwent Police when he first assaulted his wife at their home in Newport in January 2020.
The Met had the highest number of dismissals (183 out of a workforce of 33,293), followed by Greater Manchester Police (43 out of 8,112), Thames Valley Police (40 out of 5,000), and West Midlands Police (37 out of 7,991). Data from March 2025 showed that there were 146,442 full-time equivalent police officers in the 43 regional forces in England and Wales.
Assistant Chief Constable Tom Harding, director of operational standards at the College of Policing, said: “These figures show a determined and robust effort from police forces to rid policing of officers whose behaviour falls below the high standards that we, and the public, expect from them. It goes without saying that any time an officer’s behaviour breaches professional standards, or even strays into criminality, it leaves a permanent stain on the reputation of policing.
“But the public can have confidence that their police forces are quickly identifying and dealing with unacceptable behaviour from officers and staff, who, through being on the barred list, will never work in policing again.
“The message is clear: our policing system is built on upholding our code of ethics, on courage, respect and empathy and public service, and there is no place in our police service for anyone whose behaviour goes against these values.”
