Neil Wilby Media

A former Cleveland Police officer is scheduled to face a gross misconduct hearing from 14th to 17th April 2025. The allegations under consideration are of a most serious nature: sexual assault against a partner, covertly taking intimate photographs without consent, and unlawful possession of a butterfly knife.

Yet, despite the gravity of the claims, and their direct bearing on public confidence in policing, the identity of the officer remains protected by an anonymity order granted by the hearing’s Legally Qualified Chair (LQC). The legal basis for the order has not been published.

This is not an isolated instance: Across England and Wales, it has become increasingly common for gross misconduct hearings involving serious allegations—particularly those of a sexual or violent nature—to proceed with the accused officer anonymised. In many cases, the rationale for these decisions is withheld from public view. Neil Wilby Media has lodged a formal request with Cleveland Police’s Standards and Ethics Directorate for access to the LQC’s written directions. That request, at the time of writing, remains unanswered.

The absence of transparency in this and similar proceedings raises important questions about accountability within the misconduct process. It also underscores a concerning drift towards opacity that appears to conflict with both the spirit and letter of Police Conduct Regulations and statutory guidance.

A Growing Pattern

The Cleveland case is just one of many identified through a series of articles published over the past year by Neil Wilby Media, which has documented a pronounced increase in misconduct hearings where the subject officer is anonymised, even when the alleged behaviour has the potential to constitute a criminal offence.

Whilst the Police (Conduct) Regulations, 2020 provide scope for restricting identification where necessary to protect the welfare of witnesses or officers, the presumption remains in favour of open justice.

Nevertheless, the presumption appears to be weakening in practice. In some cases, misconduct hearing notices offer no explanation for anonymity. In others, the reasons are vague or procedurally opaque. In the Cleveland matter, the misconduct notice merely refers to “PC X”, with no public justification offered for why that level of concealment is appropriate.

This increasingly routine obfuscation coincides with other developments that, cumulatively, suggest a broader retreat from transparency. Several forces—including Greater Manchester Police and West Yorkshire Police—have removed misconduct outcomes from their websites altogether. Even where hearings proceed in public, key documents, including LQC rulings, are often not made available to interested observers, legal commentators, or the press.

The Public Interest in Transparency

The foundational purpose of police misconduct hearings is twofold: to determine whether an officer has breached the expected standards of professional behaviour, and to maintain public confidence in the policing system. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has repeatedly emphasised that openness in these processes is essential to maintaining legitimacy and trust.

Of course, it is accepted that in certain limited circumstances, anonymity may be justified—for instance, where it protects vulnerable complainants or prevents risk to life or limb—blanket or unexplained anonymisation risks undermining the very confidence the system purports to sustain. It may also, perversely, shield officers from reputational harm even when the allegations involve breaches of trust or abuse of authority.

In this case, the officer is no longer serving. As such, he is not subject to internal discipline or redeployment. The rationale for protecting his identity is, therefore, harder to reconcile with the principle that gross misconduct, particularly in cases involving abuse of a personal relationship, demands the highest degree of openness possible.

A Loophole in Practice

One recurring feature across numerous misconduct cases is resignation prior to the hearing. By stepping down before proceedings begin, officers effectively remove themselves from internal disciplinary jurisdiction—though the hearing may still proceed to preserve findings and determine whether dismissal would have been warranted.

However, resignation often precedes the granting of anonymity, raising concerns that officers may be avoiding accountability both in terms of outcome and in terms of public identification.

In the Cleveland case, the notice makes clear that the allegations, if proven, would have led to dismissal had the officer remained in service.

Without transparency, the outcome may carry limited weight. The public cannot evaluate whether a force has dealt properly with a serious matter, nor can they assess whether systemic issues are at play.

Perhaps most crucially, there is no indication of whether a criminal investigation was conducted in relation to these allegations — or, if one was, what its outcome may have been.

Journalistic Scrutiny as Safeguard

Independent reporting serves as a necessary safeguard in these matters. Over the past 10 years, Neil Wilby Media has monitored and reported on police misconduct matters across a substantial number of forces, often identifying inconsistencies in how hearings are notified, anonymised, and concluded.

In some cases, misconduct hearings involving credible allegations of sexual misconduct have gone almost entirely unreported in the mainstream press, due to late publication of hearing details or an absence of identifying particulars. This environment risks cultivating public indifference, rather than engagement, at a time when confidence in policing—especially among women and marginalised groups—is already in decline.

Balancing Competing Rights

There are, of course, genuine legal and ethical tensions at play. The right to a fair hearing, the welfare of witnesses, and data protection rights must all be balanced carefully against the public interest in disclosure. However, this balance cannot be achieved in the absence of clear and accessible reasoning.

Where anonymity is granted, it should be the exception, not the rule. More importantly, it should be supported by a reasoned, published decision from the LQC. Without such transparency, the process cannot be meaningfully scrutinised.

Conclusion: A Transparency Imperative

Misconduct hearings are a cornerstone of police accountability, but their legitimacy rests on public visibility. The increasing use of anonymity orders, combined with a broader decline in the publication of outcomes, risks hollowing out the very oversight mechanisms designed to sustain public trust.

The case of the former Cleveland Police officer facing serious allegations is emblematic of that concern. In the absence of published reasoning for anonymity, and with limited access to procedural directions, scrutiny is frustrated and confidence undermined.

Policing in the United Kingdom does not lack oversight structures. What it increasingly lacks is the will to subject those structures to meaningful transparency. That is a matter of institutional culture as much as regulation. Reform need not be radical to be effective—but it must begin with the recognition that sunlight, in this context, remains the best disinfectant.

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Neil Wilby is a journalist, court reporter and transparency campaigner who has reported on police misconduct, regulatory failures, and criminal and civil justice since 2009. He is the founder and editor of Neil Wilby Media, launched in 2015.