Former Derbyshire Police Constable Nurkan Dogruel has been found guilty of gross misconduct after colleagues reported two incidents involving offensive remarks – one about a detainee’s skin colour and another about a Chinese restaurant name. The panel ruled that, had he still been serving, Dogruel would have been dismissed from the force.
The first incident occurred in February 2024, while Dogruel and PC Lawton were supervising a detainee at the Royal Derby Hospital. On returning to their vehicle, Dogruel reportedly said: ‘I hope he remembers what I have done for him tonight, I have had to touch his willy and his black bastard arse.’ When challenged, Dogruel responded: ‘I did not mean it in a racist way, when I was helping him on the toilet I just saw that his arse was darker than him.’
Despite PC Lawton accepting that the comments were made in confidence, were off-the-cuff and not intended to be racist, the officer deemed it appropriate to report PC Dogruel to his line manager. Although Dogruel denied making the remark, the panel accepted Lawton’s evidence, citing that he ‘had no motive to lie’.
The second incident took place in November 2024. While on duty, Dogruel showed a colleague a photograph of a Chinese takeaway named ‘Ming Inn’ and said: ‘Do you get it, Ming-inn.’ Later, when asked by a sergeant why he was laughing, Dogruel added: ‘I was just telling (a colleague) that if a Chinese person opened a restaurant it should be called Ming-ing’. Then, when confronted by the sergeant, Dogruel inexplicably fainted, and was taken home. The panel concluded that the joke carried a negative racial connotation and amounted to discriminatory language.
The panel noted mitigating factors, including Dogruel’s lack of previous disciplinary history and his expressions of remorse. However, they concluded that due to the repeated nature of the conduct, coupled with the national concern around discriminatory behaviour in policing, dismissal was the only proportionate outcome.
OP-ED
All serving and aspiring officers should see this case for what it is: proof that the police service has become a hive of thought policing, turning officers against each other. Here, the alleged racial remark was denied by Dogruel, but the panel favoured the informant’s testimony – PC Lawton – simply because he was deemed to have ‘no motive to lie’. Such a standard shifts the burden of proof onto the accused, reducing the process to a contest of opinion rather than evidence.
The case also highlights the incestuous culture within policing. Dogruel, who did not attend the hearing, was initially represented by a Police Federation rep, only for her to be replaced due to a conflict of interest arising from a personal friendship with a panel member. The rep admitted that her mother was a close friend of one of the Independent Panel Mermbers – Mrs. Malooq. Why was the Fed Rep replaced, when they had already invested so much in the case, and yet the Independent Panel Member was allowed to remain when they had invested nothing? The legal adviser justified this arrangement on the grounds that the replacement representative ‘knows all about it’, despite the new rep having less than one day to prepare.
This outcome will do little to reassure officers, or the public, that the system operates with genuine impartiality. It sets a troubling precedent: one where careless or poorly judged words – spoken in confidence – can result in dismissal.
