Met lose bid overturn reinstatement of officer sacked over child porn

2022-07-26

Met Police loses High Court bid to overturn reinstatement of high-flying officer after tribunal ruled she was unfairly sacked following conviction for having child porn on her phone

Spt Novlett Robyn Williams was convicted for having child porn WhatsApp video
She was highly commended for her police work after the Grenfell Tower disaster
Officer was sacked without notice after sentenced to 200hrs community service
Last year she appealed to tribunal who said she was unfairly sacked for her job
Met Police appealed ruling but Justice Heather Williams rejected their bid

The Metropolitan Police has today lost their bid to overturn the reinstatement of a high-flying senior officer convicted possessing a child porn video of a five-year-old girl.

Superintendent Novlett Robyn Williams, who was commended for her work after the Grenfell Tower disaster, was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for possession of an indecent image in November 2019.

She was dismissed without notice from the Met after a special disciplinary hearing in March 2020 found her conviction amounted to gross misconduct.

However, last year, the highly decorated officer successfully appealed against the decision to dismiss her following her conviction and was reinstated as a police officer.

Superintendent Novlett Robyn Williams (pictured in 2016) was unfairly dismissed for possessing child abuse images, a tribunal ruled

Pictured: Former Metropolitan Police Superintendent Novlett Robyn Williams leaves the Court of Appeal at the High Court, London, after her appeal against her conviction for possessing a child abuse video

In June last year, the Police Appeals Tribunal (PAT) found that she should not have been sacked, and instead should have received a final written warning.

Earlier this month, the Met challenged this decision at the High Court in London, arguing it was ‘perverse and unreasonable’.

They said that sacking Williams’ was the ‘only possible outcome’.

In a judgment today, Mrs Justice Heather Williams rejected the forces’s bid to overturn the decision to reinstate the convicted officer.

She said: ‘The PAT was entitled to regard this as an exceptional case in which dismissal for the officer’s gross misconduct was not a necessary and proportionate sanction.’

The judge continued: ‘The PAT reached the conclusion that it did because of the unique circumstances of the conviction, the officer’s stellar career, the substantial impact she had had on enhancing the reputation of the MPS as a whole and its assessment that her dismissal would reduce confidence in the police in some of the communities in which the MPS had struggled to gain trust.

‘This was a permissible conclusion for it to reach.’

Earlier this month, the Met challenged the decision to reinstate Williams at the High Court in London (pictured), arguing it was ‘perverse and unreasonable’

‘The PAT reached the conclusion that it did because of the unique circumstances of the conviction, the officer’s stellar career, the substantial impact she had had on enhancing the reputation of the MPS as a whole and its assessment that her dismissal would reduce confidence in the police in some of the communities in which the MPS had struggled to gain trust,’ said Mrs Justice Heather Williams said in her judgement allowing the the sacking of Superintendent Novlett Robyn Williams (pictured) to be overturned

During Williams’ trial at the Old Bailey, jurors heard how she received a five-year-old girl being sexually abused via WhatsApp from her older sister, Jennifer Hodge, so that the officer could investigate the footage.

But she failed to report the clip, and while the court accepted she had not viewed the video, the jury was not convinced she was unaware of it being on her phone.

Anne Studd QC, for Scotland Yard, previously argued that the PAT had put ‘far too much weight’ on Williams’ mitigation and had not properly assessed the seriousness of the conviction.

However, Mrs Justice Heather Williams said: ‘I do not consider that there is anything in the suggestion that the PAT wrongly took into account personal mitigation when assessing seriousness.’

Scotland Yard also challenged the reinstatement of Detective Constable Asweina Gutty, who was dismissed following her conviction for assaulting her then-partner, before being given a final written warning after an appeal to the PAT.

However, Mrs Justice Heather Williams also rejected this challenge, finding the PAT was ‘entitled to conclude’ that a final written warning was suitable in the ‘unusual circumstances of this case’.

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