Oxfordshire police officer made sexual comments in WhatsApp group

PC Callum Kilsby was imposed with an extended four-year final written during a misconduct hearing this month.

There were eight separate proven and admitted allegations where he was involved in sending and receiving posts on the chat across a six-week period between October and December 2020.

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At the time, he was a probationary police officer with Northamptonshire Police before transferring to Thames Valley Police in December 2022.

Some of the messages contained were said to be grossly offensive, prejudicial and discriminatory in nature towards women and one included race. There were also two screen shots of wording upon a police computer screen said to be in breach of confidentiality.

During the two-day misconduct panel, starting on March 9, the officer accepted he had breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour amounting to misconduct.

However, throughout the hearing he denied his behaviour amounted to gross misconduct, which means that the allegations are so serious to justify dismissal.

The panel found that PC Kilsby’s conduct was intentional and deliberate and that discrimination was both conscious and deliberate.

Mitigating factors were considered by the panel, including his age, 22 years-old at the time.

These also included that he was new, naïve and keen to get to know members on his team, and that when he realised that chat was inappropriate, he stopped participating.

Other factors included his 11-character references, that there has been no repeat of the concerned conduct and that he received a detective chief superintendents certificate of excellence concerning his part in apprehending a high-risk offender.

It also considered his ADHD diagnoses in October 2025. Dr Duffet, consultant psychiatrist on behalf of Psychiatry UK, funded by the NHS, said: “In my opinion, [his] comments include impulsiveness, particularly blurting things out in conversation, talking context of having undiagnosed ADHD.”

The panel found that the diagnosis was such that it was relevant and may have been a contributory factor in his lapses of judgement.

However, while it was a mitigating factor, the panel said it did not reduce the seriousness of the allegations and his culpability to the extent that it diminished the overall seriousness of the conduct.

In its conclusion, the panel noted there were significant mitigation factors including that he was young in service at the time of the conduct, his participation in the group had been a short period and occurred more than five years ago and he had shown genuine remorse and learnt from his behaviour which was out of character.