A detective has been found guilty of gross misconduct after tricking his bosses into thinking he was working by jamming a single key on his computer.
Detective Constable Niall Thubron, 33, repeatedly fixed one character on his keyboard to create the illusion of constant activity during his two weekly home-working days.
On one occasion, his computer logged more than 16,000 presses of the letter “i” within 90 minutes, a misconduct hearing in Peterlee, County Durham, heard.
The scheme, carried out 38 times over 12 days between December 2024 and January 2025, allowed Thubron to avoid his policing duties for more than 45 hours of his scheduled work hours.
Monitoring software eventually flagged the “suspicious activity”, prompting an anti-corruption probe.
Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said: “This former officer was working on investigations into organised crime yet on 12 days between December 3 and January 12, the officer was using key-jamming for 45 hours out of the total of 85 hours he was logged in. He was frequently away from the keyboard for half his day. The public would be rightly appalled by this conduct.”
Once a promising footballer who played for the England Police team, Thubron joined Durham Police as a PCSO in 2016 and became a detective in 2024.
A month later he secured a prestigious role with the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit, where he was trusted to work remotely.
But investigators found “lengthy periods where the only activity was a single keystroke”. DCI Yvonne Dutson, head of professional standards at Durham Police, told the hearing: “The purpose of your actions was to give the impression you were completing tasks with the NEROCU while working from home… Misrepresenting that he was completing work when he was not is conduct that is invariably dishonest.”
His line manager, Det Sgt Stephen Gillibrand, said the deception left him “let down” and “embarrassed”, adding Thubron had “clearly employed tactics to deceive me”.
Although Thubron resigned in May, the panel ruled he would have been dismissed for gross misconduct. He has been placed on the College of Policing’s barred list.
Chief Constable Bacon said: “Police officers are trusted to work from home sometimes. To the very few who might look to take advantage of that, this case will be a stark warning that they will be caught and their conduct could be career-ending.”
