A DISGRACED police officer who had been warned about his timekeeping has been sacked after claiming he helped out at a car accident to cover up for another late arrival at work.

The full details of PC Andrew Siggens sacking have now been published by Cleveland Police following his disciplinary hearing.

He was accused of four breaches of standards – honesty and integrity; ignoring order and instructions; discreditable conduct; and confidentiality – as a result of his behaviour on March 23 this year.

The disciplinary panel heard how PC Siggens claimed to have witnessed a car spin-off the road on the A19 as he made his way to work at Hartlepool police station.

He said he had pulled over to check on the driver before letting him go on his way and he continued to drive to work.

The shamed-officer gave senior officers information about the white car and when the owner was traced he told investigators that nothing had happened on his drive to work.

Checks of automatic number plate recognition systems along his route to work showed there were a number of discrepancies in his claims.

The officer was found guilty of breaching standards of honesty and integrity, and discreditable conduct, following the hearing last month and was dismissed without notice for gross misconduct.

The two other allegations were marked as not proven.

Concluding the hearing, the panel said: "We found that the Officer had deliberately and completely fabricated the traffic incident. No incident occurred but it was convenient to the Officer to pretend it had.

"He hoped by such fabrication and pretence to justify his late arrival at a workplace where his late arrival at work on previous occasions was already a cause for concern and criticism."

They added: "We find that no officer, having witnessed a vehicle spin 360 degrees due to loss of control on a busy dual carriageway, would have let Mr M go on his way after minimal (indeed no) enquiry as to the cause of such loss of control.

"Yet that is what the Officer asks us to believe. The lack of any proper enquiry is, we find, so incredible as to persuade us that this is a case not of underperformance at the scene (as the Officer asserted) but of fabrication of the entire incident by the Officer."

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