Ellie McNamara
Introduction
Ellie McNamara was a police constable with West Mercia Police until an accelerated misconduct hearing chaired by Chief Constable Richard Cooper found she had lied in a formal witness statement to conceal a sexual relationship with a man under criminal investigation. The man was on police bail subject to conditions barring him from contacting named witnesses — McNamara among them. She signed an MG11 statement declaring she was not in a relationship with him, then remained in contact with him for months without reporting the breaches. The hearing on 25 June 2026 found all four allegations proven, each amounting to gross misconduct, and she was dismissed without notice and barred from policing.
Background Information
McNamara served as a police constable with West Mercia Police, the force covering Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin. She had what the judgment described as a relatively short police service, with no previous disciplinary sanctions. While she was serving, a man with whom she had become involved was under criminal investigation for an alleged offence; he was released on police bail subject to conditions prohibiting him from contacting named witnesses to the alleged crime, and she was one of those named witnesses. Force policy also required officers to disclose links with people under criminal investigation through a notifiable association notification.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Misconduct findings, not criminal convictions. The findings below come from a West Mercia Police accelerated misconduct hearing chaired by Chief Constable Richard Cooper, which found the allegations proven on the balance of probabilities. They are regulatory adjudications rather than court judgments, and the man at the centre of the case was investigated but not charged with a criminal offence.
On 2 June 2025, McNamara signed an MG11 witness statement to the force’s Professional Standards Department falsely stating that she was not in a relationship with the man under criminal investigation. She was not put on the spot when completing it: Cooper noted she “had time to consider the content”. Messages and admissions she made to a colleague later revealed that the pair were in an ongoing sexual relationship — and had met on the very day she signed the statement.
The man’s bail conditions prohibited him from contacting named witnesses, McNamara included. Between 10 April and 8 December 2025 she initiated and received contact from him without challenging or reporting the breaches. She also failed to submit a notifiable association notification despite the force policy requiring officers to disclose links with people under criminal investigation, and on 6 August 2025 she completed an Annual Integrity Health Check in which she again failed to disclose the relationship.
The hearing found all four allegations proven and ruled that each amounted to gross misconduct. Cooper described the witness-statement lie as an “egregious breach of the high standards expected”, and treated her failure to disclose the relationship while the man was on bail as “a sustained failure to do the right thing” and an aggravating factor. He called the later failures “a series of connected opportunities” for her to tell the truth: “She created the situation for herself, because of the lies in the MG11, that further lies were required to conceal her operational dishonesty.” He found the harm caused by the false statement was “very high”, warning: “Lying in formal statements undermines justice.” Officers who lie in statements, he added, diminish the trust society places in those responsible for gathering evidence. “Police officers cannot lie in statements,” he concluded.
In mitigation, McNamara had no previous disciplinary sanctions during her relatively short service, and the judgment acknowledged indications that the nature of the relationship and the man’s behaviour reduced her culpability for some of the later allegations. Cooper nonetheless concluded that the repeated dishonesty was too serious for any sanction short of dismissal.
Public Reaction and Consequences
McNamara was dismissed without notice, with Cooper saying that “the purposes of the misconduct regime are only satisfactorily fulfilled by dismissal without notice”. Worcester News reported that she had already left the force before the hearing and would have been sacked immediately had she still been serving. Her name is to be added to the College of Policing’s barred list, which will prevent her from working in law enforcement for life. Cooper characterised the dishonesty as “operational dishonesty… at the most serious end of the scale because of the formal witness statement setting”. The outcome was reported by the Worcester News under the headline “Former PC who ’lied on witness statement’ would have been sacked” and by Misconduct999 as “Lying Police Officer Sacked After Clandestine Love Affair With Suspect Was Exposed”.
Current Status
McNamara is a former police officer, dismissed without notice at the 25 June 2026 hearing at Hindlip Hall, West Mercia Police’s headquarters, and she will be placed on the College of Policing barred list, ending any prospect of a return to policing. The man with whom she had the relationship was investigated for a criminal offence but was not charged, according to the Worcester News; the force did not disclose his name or details of the alleged offence, and he is a private individual. No criminal proceedings against McNamara herself were reported. Both published accounts of the hearing appeared in August 2026, roughly two months after the decision, and neither indicates any appeal.
Impact on Their Career/Life
McNamara’s policing career, already over in practice by the time of the hearing, ended formally with gross misconduct findings for dishonesty — the category of finding that most reliably ends police careers and, through the barred list, forecloses any law enforcement role for life. The chief constable who chaired the hearing located the harm not in the relationship itself but in the lying: a false signed witness statement, followed by repeated opportunities to correct it in integrity declarations, that undermined the evidential role she was trusted to perform. Her previously unblemished record and the mitigating circumstances of the relationship counted for little against what Cooper called her “operational dishonesty”.