Police officers shouldn’t be sacked for doing their job

Custody sergeant Rhodri Davies has been sacked by South Wales Police. His offence? Striking a violent offender he was attempting to restrain. The six-foot-seven suspect, Tariq Evans, who was already under arrest for affray, came to no physical or mental harm. Nonetheless, a misconduct panel concluded that Davies’ decision to strike him three times will cost him his 20-year career in policing.

As is often the case with police-misconduct investigations (which can take place months to years after the initial complaint is filed), uncertainty loomed over Davies and his loved ones for a long time. In the four years since the incident with Evans, he no doubt suffered immense stress. The final misconduct-appeal hearing, at which four other findings of misconduct against Davies were overturned, took place in January 2026.

Davies’ sacking, of course, has little to do with misconduct and a lot to do with institutional cowardice. This is a policing establishment far more concerned with mitigating reputational risk than it is with backing its own officers when violence erupts.

The situation is horribly reminiscent of PC Lorne Castle’s dismissal by Dorset Police in 2025. Castle was accused of failing to treat a knife-wielding suspect with the appropriate ‘courtesy or respect’. Like Castle’s, it is hard to argue that Davies’s dismissal is merited. Even local Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi expressed disquiet, saying that the force’s disciplinary procedures had ‘failed’ the former officer.

Davies was not a problem officer. He was not a subject of repeat complaints, nor a man ‘skating on thin ice’ at any point in his career. He had an unblemished professional record. Moreover, the incident that ultimately caused his dismissal was exactly the kind of confrontation the public demands that the police handle. A violent, unpredictable and physically intimidating suspect was resisting arrest. Had Davies not been there, things could have been far worse.

Davies struck the suspect three times. Not with a baton. Not with a weapon. Not in a prolonged, vicious assault. These were three strikes delivered by hand during a moment of chaos – the type officers are trained to use as distraction techniques to gain compliance when size, strength and resistance create an immediate physical risk. Despite what the media would have us believe, the police are still permitted (just) to strike people using specific techniques and reasonable force. The suspect in this case suffered no physical injury. And yet, Davies lost his career.

If that outcome seems disproportionate, it’s because it is. Discipline in Britain’s police force today has drifted from judging actions based on their context to judging them based on how they might look to the chattering classes. CCTV footage has replaced real-time threat perception. Officers are expected to display enormous levels of restraint while grappling with violent individuals. The absurd result is that officers are authorised to use force, but punished when force looks too forceful.

Davies’s appeal hearing in January exposed the utter fragility of the case against him. Four additional misconduct findings were overturned. This should have triggered at least a degree of humility from the panel – a recognition that the disciplinary net had been cast too wide. It might even have been an opportunity to ask whether there had been a push to construct a narrative rather than uncover the truth. Instead, the system doubled down.

With the ancillary allegations gone, the panel rested the entire weight of dismissal on the three strikes that Davies had delivered. Context, record and outcome were largely disregarded. It became clear someone had to pay so that senior management could appear virtuous.

Large public institutions behave predictably under pressure; they sacrifice individuals to protect the brand. Police leadership today operates in a climate shaped by activist scrutiny, media sensationalism and political hostility. Their safest bet when an incident like Davies’s crops up is to distance the organisation from the officer in question under the guise of maintaining ‘robust standards’. It’s all theatre.

Trying to police effectively in such a culture is becoming impossible. Frontline officers depend on decisiveness. They must make split-second judgment calls and act without paralysis. If they begin to believe that physical assertiveness – no matter how justified – may end their careers, hesitation becomes inevitable. They will be more inclined to wait for backup that may not arrive. They will prioritise procedural defensibility over immediate control. This kind of risk aversion doesn’t make anyone safer. On the contrary, the consequences can be deadly.

Accountability is, of course, necessary. But accountability must be bound to reality. In this case, the absence of injury should have mattered. Davies’s squeaky clean record should have mattered. The suspect’s size and volatility should have mattered. Instead, the deciding factor was the optics of it all. This is not policing guided by principle. From what I can tell, the only positive to be extracted from these cases is that the officers involved are now much more prepared to share their experiences in public.

Dismissal should be reserved only for the most serious of allegations: for corruption, cruelty or sustained abuse of power. Deploying it against an officer doing his job cheapens its meaning and signals institutional ingratitude to those who confront danger on the public’s behalf. The police force, after all, is supposed to be an instrument of protection. But if Davies’s sacking proved anything, it is that it has become little more than an engine of self-preservation.

Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist. You can read his Substack here.