Cops slammed for 'decapitation' emails

Around 100 police officers and staff in Hertfordshire have been reprimanded for emailing pictures of a US man falling on railings and being decapitated.

Distribution of the pictures, which shows a man being chased as he tries to jump from a building to a flyover and falls between the two, was detected by Hertfordshire's email monitoring system.

The Constabulary has said it will be putting in further email monitoring technology to detect non-work related material following of the investigation.

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Eight police officers have received a formal reprimand after a hearing, while another seven staff have received final written warnings, for circulating the "potentially offensive" image.

The police were concerned that the image could be interpreted as racist, as the man shown in the pictures is black.

Deputy Chief Constable Simon Ash, who oversaw the investigation, said in a statement: "I am disappointed by the conduct of officers and staff who distributed this inappropriate image that some people may have perceived as being racist... The discipline process has been used in respect of those individuals who contravened our organisational values and standards and clearly breached our internet security and use policy."

Hertfordshire is not the first public-sector organisation to have been caught out in embarrassingly inappropriate use of email.

An ongoing investigation into email use at the DVLA led to 65 people facing disciplinary action.