EXCLUSIVE
Scotland’s Chief Constable twice tried to ‘recruit’ a disgraced senior officer who was stripped of his Queen’s Police Medal after being found guilty of misconduct – including ‘sexting’ from his force phone.
Nick Gargan – a former Chief Constable himself – quit the police in shame in 2015 after an investigation found him guilty of eight charges of misconduct, including sending inappropriate messages from his work phone, improperly interfering with a recruitment process and passing on confidential emails.
But despite his tarnished police career, internal emails seen by The Edinburgh Reporter reveal that Chief Constable Jo Farrell tried to enlist Mr Gargan to advise Police Scotland senior executives on digital services.
And Ms Farrell’s relationship with Gargan – who now works as a consultant advising companies selling services to UK police forces – is under the spotlight again after she recently encouraged her executive team to sign up to receive an email newsletter that he distributes.
Mr Gargan was forced to resign as Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset after he was found guilty of multiple charges of misconduct and was later stripped of his Queen’s Police Medal for bringing the service into disrepute.
He was also dubbed “the Diana Cop” because as a police liaison officer at the British Embassy in Paris he was involved in the investigation into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed in 1997.
But that National Criminal Intelligence Service secondment also ended under a cloud when he was suddenly “returned” to the UK after it emerged he was having an affair with the daughter of an Embassy colleague.
The Edinburgh Reporter can reveal that despite Mr Gargan’s fall from grace, emails reveal Ms Farrell had no qualms about bringing him in to Police Scotland to meet senior staff for discussions over providing advisory services.
In August 2023, weeks before Ms Farrell officially took charge in Scotland, she wrote to the force’s Chief Digital & Information Officer Andrew Hendry, instructing him to set up a meeting with Gargan to discuss technological transformation.
The meeting was eventually ditched because Police Scotland’s executive management team raised concerns, with one senior officer said to be “apoplectic” at the proposal.
A Police Scotland source said: “It is incredible that the Chief Constable thinks it appropriate to champion Nick Gargan whose police career ended in disrepute after he shared confidential information and stored inappropriate images on his police phone.
“It appears the Chief hasn’t learned anything from her first bungled attempt to foist him on to senior decision makers and it beggars belief that her deputy and assistant chief constables should now be pressured or feel compelled to sign up to Gargan’s newsletters.”
An investigation by the independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) established that Gargan used his police-issue iPhone to “send, receive and store intimate emails and images” and that he emailed one woman “a critical incident report” about a sensitive operation involving a missing person.
He was found to have sent a string of confidential police documents to non-colleagues and sent emails and text messages to another woman to give her an advantage when applying for a job at Avon and Somerset Police.
The IPCC said his work phone “contained a large number of personal and, in some cases, very intimate text message exchanges between him and various women”. The report accused him of “flawed judgement” and “ill advised” behaviour but said the findings did not justify his dismissal and recommended that he be reinstated to Chief Constable.
However, following a huge public outcry, which included a letter calling on him to resign from three former Avon and Somerset Chief Constables who collectively led the force for 25 years, he was forced out of the £175,000 a year post.
Chief Constable Farrell’s failed attempt to introduce Gargan to Police Scotland executives happened just weeks before the ill-judged “Taxigate” scandal when she commandeered a police patrol vehicle to take her home from Edinburgh to Northumberland.
Only 11 days into her new role and with most of the country at a standstill as government warnings urged the public not to travel due to Storm Babet, a police officer was removed from strategic duties to whisk her and former Durham Constabulary colleague Gary Ridley to their respective homes on a 240-mile round trip.
She later said at a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority: “Having a road policing vehicle redirected to carry out this journey in those circumstances was an error of judgement. I apologise unreservedly to my colleagues, to the authority and to the public.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Nick Gargan Consultancy were never in Police Scotland and no services have been procured from them.”
The Edinburgh Reporter contacted Mr Gargan for comment but he did not respond.
