Overview
- On September 29, a misconduct panel found DC Niall Thubron guilty of gross misconduct and ruled he would have been dismissed had he not resigned in May.
- Investigators said he used a single‑key ‘key‑jamming’ trick on 38 occasions across 12 days, totalling about 45 hours of bogus activity, with one sample logging over 16,000 “i” keystrokes in 90 minutes.
- At the time, he was seconded to the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit and permitted to work from home two days a week on complex investigations.
- Monitoring software flagged anomalous activity, and a counter‑corruption audit confirmed lengthy stretches where only one keystroke registered, leading to evidence‑based proceedings.
- He was placed on the College of Policing barred list, did not attend the hearing, retains the right to appeal, and senior officers said his actions left policing work unfinished and eroded trust.