Concerns raised about payments accepted by former Humberside Police officer

Joshua McGrory, who served as a police constable with Humberside Police, allegedly set up a bank account and online gambling accounts and allowed them to be accessed by people connected to a gambling syndicate, between July 2018 and March 2020.

According to the force, he then “dishonestly received and accepted a payment or payments from third parties made in connection with his activities”.

McGrory has also been accused of lying on his vetting form when he joined Humberside Police as a special constable in September 2015.

He allegedly failed to tell the force about his online gambling activities, his association with suspected criminals and his “susceptibility to pressure or improper influence”.

The former officer will face a two-day misconduct hearing at Goole Magistrates Court, which is due to begin on January 23.

The force has announced that former police constable Louis Cox is also due to face a misconduct hearing, at the same court on January 30.

He has been accused of using excessive force while arresting a suspect and breaching Covid-19 rules by failing to self isolate.

Earlier this week, South Yorkshire Police officer Paul Hinchcliffe, 46, was found guilty of sexual assault after he pulled down a young woman’s top and photographed her breasts during a night out.

The trial at Leeds Crown Court heard the 18-year-old victim and the married father-of-four were in a group drinking at a Wetherspoons pub in Wath-upon-Dearne, South Yorkshire, on October 3 in 2020.

The woman described how the defendant started flicking foam from the top of his beer onto her glasses, which she first thought was “a laugh”.

But then she added: “He was throwing it down my boobs. Then he got his phone and kind of pulled my top open and took a picture down my top.”

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described how she went back to an empty house and added “I just absolutely cried my eyes out – I was absolutely hysterical”.

She said the officer sent her a message later that night, saying: “God I’d do you, is that bad?” and she replied “Yes, it is.”

Hinchcliffe told the court he was “mortified” to be on trial, saying the woman consented to him taking a photograph of her cleavage.

The defendant admitted sending a picture taken down the woman’s top to a colleague but denied pulling the garment down.

South Yorkshire Police previously said Hinchcliffe, who had a role training police officers at the time, had been suspended from duties and an internal misconduct investigation was on hold, pending the outcome of the trial.

He said he had been drinking beer with a group, including other officers, for around seven and a half hours at the time of the incident.

At Leeds Crown Court, Judge Robin Mairs told Hinchcliffe he would be sentenced at a later date following a report from the probation service.