PC sacked for failing to report police car accidents

An officer has been sacked after he failed to report accidents he had while driving police vehicles.

A misconduct hearing was told PC Jake Janes hit a kerb causing a tyre to burst, crashed into a drainpipe on another occasion and also backed into the gate at High Wycombe police station.

The three separate incidents took place between November 2024 and January 2025, the panel was told. Two of the three allegations were upheld.

Janes was found to have committed gross misconduct at the hearing at Thames Valley Police's headquarters in Kidlington, Oxfordshire.

Janes, who denied the allegations, had up to five years' experience in the police, first as a special constable and later as a regular officer, the panel was told.

The hearing, which ran from 7 to 12 January, heard he hit a kerb fast enough for a tyre to burst on 19 November 2024. He initially claimed it had been a "blow-out".

Witness statements from colleagues disputed his version of events.

Janes waited five days to report the incident and the allegation was upheld.

The panel was told about a second incident on 17 January 2025, where he was said to have collided with a metal drainpipe outside High Wycombe police station.

There was insufficient evidence to confirm he was the driver of the vehicle at the time, the panel decided.

In the third incident on 23 January that same year, Janes reversed into the gate outside the station.

This time the panel had CCTV showing the incident and his response to it, as well as hearing from his passenger, a fellow officer.

It was told this was not the first time he had driven into that gate.

Janes did not report the accident until prompted to do so by a sergeant 11 days later, the hearing was told.

This allegation was upheld and Janes was dismissed without notice.

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