PC cleared of £400 theft from family

A POLICE officer of “impeccable character” has been cleared of a charge of stealing £400 from a family he was trying his best to help.

PC Julian Maynard (39) who had hefty personal debts of more than £72,000, was alleged to have taken the cash, having offered to act as a go-between in a domestic dispute involving a husband and wife in Oldham.

The officer, who had been with Greater Manchester Police for eight years, had responded to a 999 call from Ruckshana Shakeel when her newly estranged husband Mohammed turned up at the former family home on Langham Road, Oldham, demanding to be let in on June 24 last year.

PC Maynard calmed matters down and remained while Mr Shakeel, who had walked out a week earlier, collected some of his clothes and belongings.

When Mr Shakeel later asked for £1,000 from his wife, to make a mortgage payment due on the property, the officer offered to act as courier, and take the cash to Mr Shakeel, to avoid his having to return to the home.

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told that the cash was put into a sealed envelope which PC Maynard collected from the address, then handed over to Mr Shakeel at a pre-arranged meeting point. It was alleged that instead of the full £1,000, however, the envelope contained only £600.

Mr Shakeel telephoned his son to ask where the rest of the money was, and was assured it had all been there when they handed it over, and he had been “conned”.

Lisa Roberts defending, told the court the allegations against the officer, who had been given glowing character references by four senior colleagues, were “preposterous”.

She said evidence given in court by Ruckshana Shakeel and her son were contradictory, and Mrs Shakeel had taken £2,400 from the couple’s joint bank account shortly before the domestic dispute flared, making it necessary for her husband to ask for money to pay the mortgage.

She said it had to be accepted that the officer’s financial affairs had been in a “rather sorry” state, but he had already consolidated his debts and made an arrangement to pay them off.

She said the sum of £400 would have been a “drop in the ocean” and it was not credible to suggest he would have risked his professional career and good name to take the cash.

PC Maynard, who lives in Holmfirth, had strenuously denied the charge of theft made against him since his arrest.