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A police officer has been found guilty of gross misconduct following a contentious incident involving the enforcement of rules against mushroom foraging. The case centers on Louise Gather, who traveled from Derby to Bradgate Park in Leicester in November 2024 in search of a rare fungus known as magpie inkcaps. Although Mrs. Gather insisted she did not pick any mushrooms that day, former Police Constable Christopher Vickers still visited her home and issued a community resolution order.
The subsequent investigation revealed that Mr. Vickers did not personally speak to Mrs. Gather, contrary to what he recorded on an official police database. Instead, he handed the paperwork to her husband and falsely claimed he had spoken directly with her. The misconduct panel concluded that these actions were dishonest, deliberate, and had the potential to harm public confidence in the police. It was further noted that had Mr. Vickers still been employed at the time, he would have been dismissed due to the severity of his misconduct.
Community resolution orders are meant to be informal agreements between the alleged offender and the complainant, requiring the offender’s direct involvement, acceptance of responsibility, and a signed acknowledgment of the agreement. In this case, the panel found that Mr. Vickers failed to follow these procedures by bypassing direct contact with Mrs. Gather. The order itself included conditions such as not removing items from Bradgate Park in the future and investigating the park’s designation as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), which prohibits such foraging activities in protected areas.
Mrs. Gather had previously described the police response as “a bit excessive,” although this view was not considered during the misconduct hearing. The incident originated when Bradgate Park Trust reported a woman picking mushrooms at the park, leading to Mr. Vickers’ visit to Mrs. Gather’s home on November 25th. After speaking with her husband, who signed the community resolution paperwork, Mr. Vickers left but later falsified records by stating that he had spoken directly to Mrs. Gather and that she had admitted the offence.
When questioned about the discrepancy, Mr. Vickers acknowledged his false entry but claimed he had intended to call Mrs. Gather and simply forgot. The misconduct committee criticized this reasoning, stating that the officer acted “for his own convenience” and was knowingly in breach of police policy. Following the ruling, Mrs. Gather clarified that she did not initiate a complaint but was contacted by the Professional Standards Department after the press coverage exposed that a crime had been wrongly recorded against her without evidence or her being spoken to. She added that Leicestershire Police had already apologized, and the charge was removed from her record. Mrs. Gather expressed surprise upon learning that the officer’s behavior constituted gross misconduct
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