Posted on 07/27/2003 7:13:09 PM PDT by UnklGene
GAY COP FIRED FOR SEX WITH BOY GETS JOB BACK
A GAY cop sacked after being convicted of indecency with a boy of 16 has got his job back, The People can reveal.
PC Matthew Cowling, 23, was reinstated - even though a judge put him on the Sex Offenders Register for five years.
The extraordinary decision by a tribunal has shocked Metropolitan Police top brass and rank-and-file officers used to seeing offenders booted out of the force for ever.
One well-placed Scotland Yard source said: "It's ludicrous but unfortunately is typical of the way the police is going."
Cowling will even get about 12 months' back pay of £24,000. The Old Bailey heard how the boy was 15 when Cowling met him.
A 16-year-old girl on work experience at the police station in Bexleyheath, south east London, told the PC her friend had come out as a homosexual.
She offered Cowling the lad's phone number and the officer arranged to meet him outside the police station.
Cowling denied they had full sex and insisted he believed the boy was older.
The officer, who continued seeing the boy after he turned 16 in October 2000, was arrested and accused of a series of sexual encounters in an alleyway at Bexleyheath.
Cowling denied all charges and was cleared in April last year of a serious sex assault and charges of indecent assault and gross indecency.
But he was convicted on one count of gross indecency in the alley when the boy was 16. As he was given a conditional discharge, even his defence lawyer accepted it meant the end of his career.
Cowling, a cop for three years, was sacked by a Met discipline board two months after the trial. But he put his case to the Metropolitan Police Authority appeals tribunal, which reinstated him last month.
The Home Secretary heard such cases until the panel took over the role last year.
Now officers can get their jobs back on a majority ruling by the four members - a lawyer, an authority member, a former chief constable and a retired chief superintendent.
A MPA spokesman said: "The tribunal will consider arguments from the officer and police and reach a decision in accordance with the evidence."
Yesterday, as police were trying to recruit at a Gay Pride march in London, a Met spokesman confirmed: "An officer has been reinstated but is yet to take up a new post."
Our source said: "The Met should encourage a diverse range of people. But you have to ask if this officer epitomises gay pride in the force."
Cowling, who now lives near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, said: "I don't wish to discuss this."
You know, escape all those tinyminded, "homophobes" in England.
(/Sarcasm)
The Home Secretary heard such cases until the panel took over the role last year.
Now officers can get their jobs back on a majority ruling by the four members - a lawyer, an authority member, a former chief constable and a retired chief superintendent.
How many of them met Cowling in the alley before the decision?
Happens all the time in London. Swept under the rug.
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