A senior Greater Manchester Police detective has been placed on the College of Policing’s Barred List after he tested positive for anabolic steroids and accepted that his conduct amounted to gross misconduct.
Former Detective Chief Inspector James Faulkner was dismissed on 9th January at an accelerated misconduct hearing chaired by Chief Constable Stephen Watson. GMP said Faulkner resigned before the hearing took place, meaning the Chief Constable could only record what would have happened had he remained a serving officer: dismissal without notice.
Faulkner did not attend the hearing and instead provided a written statement in which he accepted gross misconduct. He also accepted the outcome of a with-cause drugs test and did not dispute the results.
Faulkner joined GMP in November of 2000 and, according to the force, went on to hold senior roles as a CID leader. In this role, he was involved in high-profile cases including murder investigations, drugs operations and investigations into serious and organised crime. He was working in the Public Protection Governance Unit at the time of the events that led to the hearing.
Chief Constable Watson said the force’s concerns began when, on 16th May 2024, an unnamed constable reported Faulkner via a Microsoft Teams message stating that he took steroids. Watson said Faulkner did not refute the constable’s statement, and a decision was then made to conduct a with-cause drugs test. The hearing was told that a urine sample later tested positive for anabolic steroids.
Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, anabolic steroids are classified as Class C controlled substances. This places them in the same category as prescription sedatives and some growth hormones. In practice, possession does not automatically result in a criminal charge, but offences can arise depending on how the drugs are obtained, used, or distributed, particularly where there is unlawful supply.
Chief Constable Watson said Faulkner did not indicate that he had been lawfully supplied with anabolic steroids, despite being given the opportunity to do so at the time of testing and afterwards. He found that Faulkner had breached the standards of professional behaviour relating to honesty and integrity, discreditable conduct, and orders and instructions, and that the combined breaches amounted to gross misconduct.
In his account, Faulkner accepted that he took one type of steroid but suggested that any additional substances detected were the result of ‘contamination of the product that he did take’. Watson said he considered Faulkner’s culpability to be high, describing the evidence of illicit steroid use as ‘incontrovertible’ and the conduct as deliberate, carried out with full knowledge that it was contrary to GMP’s drug and alcohol misuse policy.
Watson also pointed to what he described as the wider implications of unlawful steroid supply. In assessing how the steroids were obtained, he said the former officer must have interacted with ‘active criminals’ in order to procure them, adding that ‘a police officer is expected to target active criminals, not to consort with them’. He treated Faulkner’s senior rank as an aggravating factor, and said the conduct fell ‘squarely’ into a category that causes a loss of trust amongst the public.
While noting that Faulkner had expressed a degree of remorse and had an otherwise unblemished record, Watson referred to an implication of ‘poor choices being adopted in the midst of significant challenges in his personal life’. Even so, he concluded that nothing would outweigh the potential loss of public confidence had Faulkner been permitted to remain in office, and said that the outcome would have been dismissal with immediate effect.
The Chief Constable said Faulkner had paid a heavy price for what amounted to a ‘catastrophic lack of judgement’ and that the outcome should serve as a salutary lesson to those who hold the trusted office of constable.
