Police officer who lied that her daughter had cancer jailed

A FORMER police officer who lied that her daughter had cancer to take time off work to help her with her showjumping career has been jailed for 18 months.

Rachel Hewitt “span a tissue of lies” claiming 15-year-old Natasha was seriously ill with cancer, when she was actually fit and well.

She was granted compassionate and sick leave, and finally a career break as her daughter’s condition apparently deteriorated and colleagues took part in whip-rounds raising money to buy a DVD player and vouchers for the “ailing” teenager.

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At Hull Crown Court Judge Simon Jack called her actions an “extreme” breach of trust, saying: “If one police officer seems to have been telling a pack of lies, even if this was not directly to a member of the public that clearly undermines the faith the public has in the police.”

The court heard Hewitt, 40, of South Elmsall, near Pontefract, told her manager at North Yorkshire Police, that Natasha, one of two successful showjumping daughters, had hurt her back in a fall from a horse. Later she said a cancerous lump had been discovered. In May 2010, Hewitt said her daughter was in hospital with pneumonia and was having final treatment on May 7 – when in fact she was competing at a showground, prosecutor Simon Batiste told the court.

The next January she said Natasha had been in intensive care with a life-threatening infection and was granted compassionate leave. In reality, that weekend the teenager was acting as a groom to a friend at an equestrian event.

Heidi Cotton, defending, said once Hewitt told her first lie “it was incredibly difficult to backtrack”, adding: “She accepts fully that it became incredibly convenient in meeting her daughters’ commitments.”

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In interviews after her arrest last October, she made no comment. She later resigned from the force. Hewitt, who earlier admitted misconduct in a public office and fraud, will serve around half her sentence in jail, the rest on 
licence.