Police officer to face hearing over allegations of calling prostitutes while on duty

A Sussex police inspector will answer allegations that he called prostitutes while he was on duty, was rude, arrogant and unprofessional towards colleagues and leaked information to the media.
Lee Lyons SUS-150912-115259001Lee Lyons SUS-150912-115259001
Lee Lyons SUS-150912-115259001

Sussex Police Inspector Lee Lyons is the first officer whose misconduct hearing will be held in public. It is at Sussex Police Headquarters in Lewes on Monday (December 13) when Inspector Lyons will answer allegations that his conduct amounts to a breach of the force’s Standards of Professional Behaviour.

The inspector, who has been based at various stations across the county, faces allegations that he disclosed details on Facebook of Operation Oakfield, a murder investigation, used other social media to disclose information when he was off-duty, told a journalist about a number of police officers who had been suspended at Hastings and that while he was on duty he made and received a series of phone calls and text messages from his Sussex Police Blackberry to prostitutes which on one occasion in February 2014 culminated in him allegedly arranging a fee and location for a prostitute’s service at the end of his shift.

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He faces further allegations that he sent and received a series of imessages and texts from his personal phone to different prostitutes while he was on duty as a critical incident inspector.

He is also accused of sending sensitive or restricted documents from his Sussex Poilice email account to his person email account along with full operational orders concerning Operation Ingram, the Pride Festival, Op Sparrow, the Hastings Pirate Festival, Op Smiley, an investigation in to Class A drugs in Rother district, Op Fox about a house fire in Hastings and Op Lake about mutual aid to Surrey.

It is also alleged Inspector Lyons was “consistently rude, arrogant and unprofessional’ towards colleagues while he was deployed to a public order event in south Wales in August and September last year.

He is alleged to have been rude and abusive during a phone call with a sergeant in the Met Police who refused to drive 40 miles at the end of his 16 hour shift in order to drop a van off to him and that on one occasion during the Wales deployment, while queuing for food in a canteen, he allegedly shouted angrily at a female member of the catering staff and threw a paper plate at her.

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