Wolverhampton Pc sacked for making 'bad joke' about rape says his life has been ruined
A sacked policeman accused the West Midlands force of making a scapegoat of him for making a 'bad joke' about rape.
Former Wolverhampton Pc Richard Mayes, a father of three, told the Express & Star: "My life has been ruined by a single word. I did not steal, hit anyone or commit any other crime.
"I said a word that one person in the room didn't like – and it wasn't even that word which got me the sack."
The 45-year-old, who was a Taser training instructor for 10 years, was fired as an appeal tribunal upheld the decision.
Mayes who served in Wolverhampton before being based at the regional police training centre at RAF Cosford and lived in Telford, explained: "I used a word to describe the state of a body after being rigid when first hit by a Taser. A woman officer complained because she used to live in South Africa where it was apparently offensive. It was only when she made a statement detailing everything else that had happened during the training session that the rape issue was even mentioned."
Mr Adrian Keeling QC, representing Mr Mayes at yesterday's appeal, told the Birmingham hearing: "He has been made an unfair scapegoat for where the force wants to be rather than actually is. Colleagues in the closed and private environment of a training session did not view this as gross misconduct."
But Mr John-Paul Waite, representing West Midlands Police, argued the confidence rape victims had in the force would have been undermined if Pc Mayes had not been dismissed.
The comment was made during Taser training for Staffordshire officers in May 2014. Pc Mayes spent the next 18 months at the Tally Ho training centre in Edgbaston. He was sacked in October last year.
Mr Mayes, who split from his wife since the complaint and now lives in Wales, said last night: "This has ruined my life. It put pressure on a marriage that, perhaps, was already troubled. The police put conditions on me – such as having to travel from Telford to Edgbaston and back every day. I almost became homeless in the last seven months." He now works as a self employed cleaner and maintained: "You are virtually unemployable as a sacked police officer. There is a stigma to it."
