Award-winning Halesowen cop forced to resign over inappropriate messages (From Halesowen News)
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Award-winning Halesowen cop forced to resign over inappropriate messages
10:06am Thursday 7th February 2013 in News
Shamed cop James Horton
THE award-winning head of Dudley District Special Constabulary
has resigned over allegations he misused his police force Twitter
account by sending inappropriate personal messages.
James Horton,who used to be based in Halesowen, rose
through the ranks to head a team of more than 60 volunteer special constables, after volunteering his time to West Midlands Police for more than a decade.
He was awarded the prestigious Chief Constable Award for Outstanding Contribution in July last year for his dedication in continuing to volunteer for the force while battling non-Hodgkins lymphoma, following his diagnosis in 2011, with police chiefs at the time commending his dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism.
Mr Horton was a meeter and greeter at Asda for several years and before his resignation had spoke of his desire to become head of all specials in the West Midlands.
But Mr Horton, who was also presented with a long service medal in 2009, resigned from the force with immediate effect last month over allegations he misused his work social media account, against force policy, with a West Midlands Police spokesman confirming he was also referred to the Police Professional Standards Department following his conduct.
No further details have been revealed regarding the actual misuse, but he is believed to have made inappropriate personal messages to members of the public and his Twitter account has since been deleted.
The spokesman added: “Any breaches of force policy are taken extremely seriously and will be thoroughly and professionally investigated.”
Special Constable Stuart Pearson has taken over as acting head of the Dudley District Special Constabulary.
Uniformed specials are expected to give up at least 16 hours of their spare time each month to work alongside regular officers but Mr Horton regularly clocked up thousands of hours a year.
Mr Horton was unavailable fo rcomment as the News went to press.
Simon Tromans says...
11:38am Sun 17 Feb 13
We were instilled with great professionalism in the unit. We knew never to bring ourselves into "disrepute" and indeed before being deployed as sole marshals etc, for parades and the like, that instruction to EVERYBODY rang in our ears.
So to read this, I find saddening.
As I was for a short time this persons Senior Officer, I won't comment on him personally.
Back then though, it was obvious to all that "fast tracking" personnel with enthusiasm over experience was not the way to go. There was an edict whether it was unwritten or not, that Specials were not to go for promotionary positions for at least 2-3 years and then we found that people could get an equiv Sgts position within 6 months. This became fraught when such people who in reality had only an accumulation of a weeks hours became too vocal in day to day affairs over experienced senior personnel.
One thing of note that I have observed in my days since leaving the force, is that I no longer see Specials parading the street. Not once in 11 years have I seen this, yet I deployed 2 to 6 people per night in Dudley North as it was . Maybe times have changed and they do different things, but for the publicity given of thousands of hours per month, I can't see them pounding streets in my locale.
I am no longer involved in this and as such, my views are my own.