Reece Jones
Introduction
Reece Jones was a police constable and firearms officer with the Ministry of Defence Police, the specialist force that protects defence establishments, from September 2017 until 2026. He was dismissed without notice at 32 after an accelerated misconduct hearing found that, in December 2022 and January 2023, he used his personal Snapchat account to send sexual messages and an explicit photograph to a 13-year-old girl and continued the exchange after she told him her age. He had been arrested on suspicion of sexual communication with a child in 2023, but the criminal case ended with no conviction after the CPS offered no evidence; the dismissal rests on the misconduct panel’s findings.
Background Information
Jones joined the Ministry of Defence Police in September 2017 and worked as a firearms officer throughout his career, a role he described at the hearing as central to his sense of identity and vocation. He was 29 at the time of the messages and 32 when the case was heard. He had an otherwise clean disciplinary record, and references and evidence of good character were submitted on his behalf.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Misconduct findings, not criminal convictions. The findings below come from a Ministry of Defence Police accelerated misconduct hearing chaired by Assistant Chief Constable Trevor Clark QPM, which found the allegations proven on the balance of probabilities. They are regulatory adjudications rather than court judgments: the CPS offered no evidence after the girl stopped supporting the prosecution, so the criminal case ended without a conviction. Misconduct proceedings use the civil standard of proof — “more likely than not” — not the criminal standard required for a conviction.
Between December 2022 and January 2023, Jones sent photographs and messages from his personal Snapchat account, under the handle “michaeljonesy07”, to a 13-year-old girl referred to as Child A, whom he did not know. He asked her what she was wearing, asked her to send photographs of herself, and sent images of himself taken in his bathroom, including one showing his genitals partly exposed with the message “wuu2 now haha x”. The girl, who had never met the sender, found the messages “weird” and unwanted; she told him she was 13, and he replied “You ain’t x” and “Show me you x”.
Jones was arrested by Thames Valley Police on 5 July 2023 on suspicion of engaging in sexual communication with a child, and his mobile phone was seized and forensically examined. He answered no comment in interview after a prepared statement denying intentional contact with anyone he believed to be underage. In November 2025 Thames Valley Police told the MDP the criminal case had ended: the CPS offered no evidence because Child A no longer wanted to attend court and support the prosecution, and the force’s misconduct investigation resumed when further exhibits were provided that December.
At the accelerated misconduct hearing, held virtually on 8 July 2026, Jones accepted the Snapchat account was his and admitted sending some messages and photographs, but denied knowingly engaging in sexual communication with anyone he believed was under 16, saying the girl had initially told him she was 16 and that he would have ended the conversation had he known she was 13. He denied sending the explicit image, arguing that Snapchat indicators which could have confirmed its transmission were missing from the records, and noted no explicit images were found on his seized devices. The chair rejected his account, finding him neither an honest nor a credible witness — his vagueness and failure to recognise his own bathroom and bedding were deliberate rather than a genuine failure of recollection. Jones eventually accepted it was more likely than not that he was the person in the bathroom photographs, and the chair found the distinctive bedding visible in the explicit photograph was similar, if not identical, to bedding in a photograph of Jones’s home, with the accompanying language matching wording in messages Jones admitted sending.
The chair found all the factual allegations proven and concluded that Jones’s conduct — breaching the standards of honesty and integrity, authority, respect and courtesy, and discreditable conduct — amounted to sexually predatory behaviour regardless of what age he believed the girl to be, because he continued the same pattern after she said she was 13. He found Jones’s culpability high, describing the behaviour as “intentional, deliberate, targeted and planned” and not a single lapse of judgement, and found actual harm to Child A with the potential for significantly greater harm. The panel acknowledged his good character, relationship difficulties and financial pressures, but found they did not outweigh the seriousness of the conduct.
Public Reaction and Consequences
ACC Trevor Clark QPM described the case as gross misconduct “of the utmost seriousness”, saying Jones had exploited a child’s vulnerability and that the expectation on a serving officer was stronger still for one entrusted with the authority of a firearms role. “When he was made aware that she was in fact 13, he continued that same pattern of behaviour and continued to respond to her,” he said. The chair concluded that a fair-minded member of the public, aware of all the facts found proven, “would expect nothing less than dismissal to follow”. Jones was dismissed without notice for gross misconduct on 8 July 2026.
Current Status
Jones was dismissed without notice from the Ministry of Defence Police on 8 July 2026 following the accelerated misconduct hearing, and is no longer a police officer. The chair’s decision has been published as a formal outcome report on gov.uk. The criminal case against him ended in November 2025 when the CPS offered no evidence after Child A said she did not want to attend court, so he was never prosecuted or convicted of any offence; the findings recorded against him are regulatory findings made on the balance of probabilities.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Jones’s nine-year policing career, spent entirely as an MDP firearms officer, ended with a dismissal for gross misconduct that the chair said was necessary to maintain public confidence in the police service. The panel found his conduct was predatory, sustained over time and a gross breach of the standards expected of a holder of a firearms authority, and the published outcome places that finding permanently on the public record.