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Katie Price declared that ‘justice’ had been served after a Met police officer sent messages mocking her son, Harvey Price, over WhatsApp.
In 2023, officer Carlo Francisco was found to have committed gross misconduct over messages shared in several group chats.
Some of these included making fun of Harvey, 22, who is autistic, with vision-impairing septo-optic dysplasia and also Prader-Willi syndrome.
Prader–Willi syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that causes slow development and a wide range of physical symptoms, such as learning difficulties and behavioural challenges.
Some of Mr Francisco’s messages included a video suggesting that Harvey was on drugs.
Then, this week, one of his colleagues was formally dismissed, also for gross misconduct, after his chat with Mr Francisco was exposed.
A hearing at Palestra House in London on Friday found Inspector Charles Ehikioya, who was the full-time chairman of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, sent and received racist, sexist, and inappropriate texts with Mr Francisco.
He also failed to report them, the panel found.
In more than 7,000 messages between 2017 and 2020, the officer was said to have sent and received jokes, pictures, and videos.
After the hearing, Ms Price, 46, took to Instagram, sharing a screenshot of an article containing the update.
She wrote to her 2.7million followers: ‘Finally some justice for my son @officialmrharveyprice’.
Ms Price previously spoke about the officers’ behaviour, telling Channel 5 News broadcaster Dan Walker that they should be ’embarrassed’ and ‘ashamed’.
‘I hope all their names and their mugshots come out because I would like to see their faces, and they should be named and shamed,’ she said.
At the time, Ms Price received the support of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who said: ‘I’m as disgusted as other Londoners are by the fact that certain police officers, any member of society, in fact, should behave in this way.
‘There’s no place in our police service for anybody who is racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic.’
Meanwhile, Inspector Ehikioya was found to have sent a series of racist messages about Chinese people.
The hearing was also told he sent an image of the late Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, with the comment ‘message from the other side, tell the Muslims there’s no 72 virgins left’.
Other jokes in the chat log included having sex with a girl with Down’s syndrome and mockery of the late Duke of Edinburgh’s car crash, as well as a video in which there was a child with a naked bottom.
Inspector Ehikioya said the claims were fabricated or falsely attributed to him because of his race or position at the MBPA, the misconduct hearing previously heard.
On April 1, 2019, Inspector Ehikioya told Mr Francisco to stop sending or receiving ‘these silly porns’, saying he could get into ‘trouble’.
Inspector Ehikioya was then found to have committed gross misconduct by a panel led by Commander Jason Prins.
It came after they found allegations that his conduct amounted to a breach of the standards of professional behaviour in respect of equality and diversity, discreditable conduct, and challenging and reporting improper conduct.
Commander Prins said the panel ‘found that Inspector Ehikioya has engaged in racist, sexist, misogynistic, and otherwise inappropriate behaviour’.
He added: ‘The panel finds to a large extent that the messages speak for themselves.’
Commander Prins also said they found his defence of the allegations to be ‘fanciful’ and ‘far-fetched’.
‘The panel found that the messages sent by Inspector Ehikioya or received by him, which he failed to challenge or report, deeply damage public confidence in the police service.’
He concluded by saying the panel found the actions amounted to gross misconduct and were ‘so serious as to potentially justify dismissal’.
After a break for the panel to consider sanctions, Commander Prins said the ‘appropriate and proportionate sanction’ was dismissal without notice.
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