Exclusive: Suspended police chief mounts legal challenge with taxpayers’ cash

Cleveland chief Sean Price is also using the same publicly-funded legal insurance to pay for a separate court bid to claw back an annual £50,000 ‘loyalty bonus‘ his employers halted following his arrest last year at his North Yorkshire home.

Mr Price, who had a salary package worth more than £200,000 a year, has launched judicial review proceedings in the High Court to try to stop a planned disciplinary hearing next week.

Judicial reviews are notoriously expensive legal moves but Mr Price’s estimated costs of at least £50,000 will be met through a controversial defence fund for chief police officers which the Yorkshire Post revealed was being paid for by taxpayers earlier this year.

Yorkshire MP Julian Smith, who has previously challenged senior police officers’ use of public money in Parliament, said taxpayers would look on with “disbelief” at the latest revelations.

The Association of Police Authorities, led by West Yorkshire Police Authority chairman Mark Burns-Williamson, said it was urgently reviewing the situation.

Mr Price is seeking to delay his disciplinary hearing until the conclusion of a wider criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing at Cleveland Police and its police authority on the grounds the proceedings would prejudice that inquiry.

If his judicial review is successful, Mr Price may never face any disciplinary proceedings for a raft of gross misconduct allegations because his contract expires next March, when the criminal inquiry is expected to still be running.

The first of those allegations involves his alleged use of “undue influence” to appoint the daughter of former Cleveland Police Authority chairman Dave McLuckie to a junior clerical role in the force. The hearing is due to take place next Tuesday but that is now subject to Mr Price’s judicial review which is to be heard in the High Court tomorrow.

Mr Price also faces 18 further gross misconduct allegations, including misuse of a corporate credit card and misspending on foreign travel, but no dates for hearings have been set.

The Yorkshire Post has previously revealed taxpayers are providing up to £750,000 year to fund the personal legal expenses of the country’s senior police officers via payments from police authorities to their unofficial ‘trade union’.

The money is paid into a legal insurance fund run by the Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association (CPOSA). Despite chief officers’ high level of pay, police authorities are also paying their individual CPOSA annual subscription fee of £275.

In the current financial year, the public is paying £2,197 for CPOSA’s legal insurance policy for each of its 350 members who are made up of assistant chief constables upwards in each force, plus some senior civilian officials.

The amount charged for personal legal cover has nearly doubled in 2012/13 after North Yorkshire chief constable Grahame Maxwell ran up a bill of around £250,000 before admitting gross misconduct last year.

In 2011/12, CPOSA charged police authorities £1,130 for each chief officer’s personal cover for what was understood to be a maximum spend of £250,000 for an individual case. CPOSA will not comment on the cover now available but it is thought it extends to a maximum of £500,000.

North Yorkshire Police Authority has previously told the Yorkshire Post the CPOSA scheme amounts to a “war chest” for chief police officers to fight disciplinary cases.

Mr Price, who remains on police bail following his arrest for fraud, corruption and misconduct, said: “I have raised many serious concerns regarding this (disciplinary) hearing with the Police Authority without success. I have been left no option but to take this action.”

He added: “Earlier this year the Police Authority decided to withhold the contractual annual retention payment that forms part of my annual pay, and which amounts to almost a third of my overall pay. Since my arrest in August last year I have maintained my innocence of any wrongdoing and have not been charged with any criminal matter or found guilty of any misconduct. It is forthe Courts to decide if the action taken by the Authority was appropriate.”

A Cleveland Police Authority spokesman said both legal actions by Mr Price were being “vigorously contested”.

The £50,000 bonus was first provided in 2008 to ensure the chief constable wasn’t poached by another force. It is unclear why the payments have been made in advance at the beginning of the financial year and the District Auditor is investigating the legality of it.

CPOSA declined to comment. CPOSA vice president David Griffin, Humberside’s deputy chief constable, has previously defended the public paying for personal legal costs on the grounds chief officers undertake roles that expose them to risk of litigation.

Responses to freedom of information requests to each of the four Yorkshire forces plus Cleveland, however, suggest no chief officers have faced legal action in the past five years. Instead, the fund appears to have been largely used to pay for the defence of the North Yorkshire and Cleveland chief constables facing gross misconduct charges.

CPOSA has refused to provide copies of its accounts to the Yorkshire Post or to Julian Smith, Tory MP for Skipton and Ripon.

Mr Smith said: “Taxpayers should have the right to scrutinise how this money is being spent and they will be looking on in disbelief at this latest spending.”

Mark Burns-Williamson said: “The Associations of Police Authorities and Police Authority Chief Executives recognise the public will have big questions about the payment of some legal fees for Chief Officers and have met with CPOSA to discuss this as a matter of urgency. These are ultimately matters for local decision making, and although we are developing new national guidance on this matter, decisions on future payments will be made by elected Police and Crime Commissioners. Our meeting with CPOSA was constructive and a number of ‘next steps’ have been agreed with a view to resolving the issue as quickly as possible.”