Work-from-home policeman banned for life after faking work with jammed keyboard

Niall Thubron jammed his keyboard to maintain the pretence he was busy working from home. Photo / Metro

A Durham police officer has been found guilty of misconduct after he jammed a character on his keyboard so he would appear busy at work.

On several occasions between December 3 and January 13, Detective Constable Niall Thubron allegedly fixed a character of his keyboard so he would appear to be typing, the Sun reports.

One key on his keyboard was being held down for a whopping 45 hours, more than half the 85 hours he was contracted to work.

Thubron had been trusted to work at home two days of the week as he worked on organised crime cases for the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit.

A September 29 hearing date was set after his dishonesty was discovered by a counter-corruption audit.

The disciplinary panel found the 33-year-old guilty of gross misconduct and banned him from police work for life.

Durham’s Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said Thubron “knew avoiding work was wrong and key jamming was also wrong, this was a case of deliberate dishonesty”.

She told Metro she expects “the public will rightly be appalled” by his conduct, which brings the rest of the force into disrepute.

“The public expects police officers to work diligently on their behalf – that is a trust that is painstakingly built by hard-working colleagues”, she said.

“Police officers are trusted to work from home sometimes. To the very few who might look to take advantage of that, this is a stark warning that they will be caught, and their conduct could be career-ending.”

Thubron resigned in May, but the hearing noted he would have been terminated from his position otherwise.

According to the Sun, he did not attend the hearing and has not explained what he was really doing while he was supposed to be working.

He has the opportunity to appeal the panel’s findings.