Ex-Suffolk PC barred from policing after making offensive racist remarks
Andrew Bedding was found to have breached professional standards after making remarks including a sexual innuendo about 9/11
A former Suffolk police officer would have been dismissed without notice for gross misconduct after a disciplinary hearing found he sent a series of offensive messages and unlawfully shared confidential police information.
Andrew Bedding, who joined Suffolk Constabulary in 2022 after previously serving with Essex Police, sent multiple messages from his personal phone between February and July 2023.
These included derogatory comments about colleagues, discriminatory remarks about a woman’s ethnic background, and sexual comments about a member of the public that referenced the World Trade Centre attacks.
He also made insulting generalisations about a police domestic abuse investigation team and shared an image of a colleague with an offensive caption. In another exchange, he criticised two officers he had worked with and disclosed partial information about a police vehicle used for surveillance purposes.
An accelerated misconduct hearing, held on 7 July 2025, found that Bedding had also breached the Data Protection Act after sending names, addresses and incident details from police systems to friends and members of the public. He had accepted a police caution in January this year in relation to those disclosures.
Assistant Chief Constable Nicholas Davison, who chaired the hearing, said: “The misuse of police systems undermines public confidence in the police’s ability to safeguard sensitive information. Misogynistic and discriminatory messages, if made public, would likely cause reputational damage to the police service.”
Bedding did not attend the hearing but was represented by a police friend, who confirmed he had received all relevant papers and chosen not to take part. The panel found he had breached standards of confidentiality, authority, respect and courtesy, and discreditable conduct.
He will now be added to the police barred list, preventing him from working in law enforcement again.