Holly Lee was told she would have been dismissed by South Yorkshire Police if she had not resigned before a disciplinary hearing in January.

She has been placed on a barred list, meaning she cannot be employed by another force.

Lee was a student officer, who held the rank of police constable, in August 2022 when she told her sergeant she could not work a night shift because she was unwell.

But in the early hours of the following day, Lee used her warrant card to try to gain entry to a nightclub in Sheffield when she was out drinking with friends.

In a ruling, Chief Constable Lauren Poultney said the former officer had “demonstrated a lack of honesty and integrity”.

She said: “In my judgement former PC Lee intentionally, deliberately and knowingly engaged in a course of serious misconduct, beginning with her false message to supervision, continuing with her attempts to gain access to the nightclub by misusing her police warrant card and status as a police officer and her dishonesty towards the attending officers, and concluding with further dishonest to supervision later that morning.

“This was a sustained and persistent episode of serious misconduct.

"Whilst I recognise that former PC Lee’s dishonesty was not connected to operational policing, in my judgement it was dishonest, demonstrated a lack of integrity and included the misuse by former PC Lee of her status as a police officer.”

She added: “I bear in mind that the misconduct of a single officer can tarnish the reputation of a force and the service as a whole."

Police officer who used warrant card at nightclub after phoning in sick guilty of gross misconduct