ROGUE TRAFFIC POLICEMAN JAILED FOR ISSUING FAKE FINES

Rogue traffic policeman, Irfan Hussain, has been jailed for imposing on-the-spot speeding fines to motorists so he could keep the cash.   Hussain stopped one driver and “fined” him £30 after realising he had left his wallet at home and had no money for his lunch.   The court was told it was late at night on August 22 last year that Hussain had stopped driver Daniel Kitchener in Sandy Lane, Bushey for speeding. On that occasion the officer told the driver he could avoid points by paying him immediately a £30 fine, but when he learned the man didn’t have the money, he let him off.   However 40 minutes later in Magpie Hill Road, Stanmore, he stopped driver John Philpott in his Ford Mondeo for speeding and took £30 off him.   On August 26 in Elstree Way, Borehamwood, Hussain stopped a car telling the driver he had been doing 40 miles per hour and the speed limit was 30. As a result, he got another £30.   The crooked cop was jailed for a year when he appeared at court to plead guilty to dishing out his own instant fines. On August 28 last year he was arrested.   The court heard three motorists each handed over sums of £30 after being told by the officer it was a way they could avoid getting penalty points.   Hussain, 35, a married father of a young daughter, had been a police officer with Hertfordshire Constabulary for 10 years when he became corrupt last August.   Luton crown court was told he had committed the offences after suffering stress from a number of distressing cases that he had been involved in, including the suicide of two young people on a railway line in the county.   But, in jailing the ex-officer, Judge Richard Foster said he was “at the heart of policing in this country by consent is public trust.”   The judge said the trust was based on the public believing in the integrity of police officers.   He went on: “That has been called into question by your conduct. What you have done is not just let yourself and your family down, but the entire police service.”   Irfan was living with his wife and daughter at the time of the offences in Canterbury Way, Stevenage, Herts and his duties regularly found himself as a traffic officer driving his marked police car in the south of the county.   He pleaded guilty in court to misconduct, three offences of fraud and three offences of doing an act tending or intended to pervert the court of justice.   The offences had occurred during a five day period last August.   Hussain was caught after one of the drivers was suspicious about what had happened and contacted the policeman’s bosses at Hatfield Police Station.   Daniel Siong, prosecuting, said officers from Herts Police’s anti-corruption unit asked the driver to make a phone call to Hussain which was recorded.   The court was told it was as a result of the driver who had been stopped on August 26 contacting police that Hussain was arrested.   The court was told that following his arrest Hussain has been dismissed from the force and he and his family have moved to Larch Close in Teignmouth, Devon.   Mr Mian Naeem defending said: “The fall from grace of Mr Hussain has not only been dramatic but catastrophic and tragic.”   He said the former officer had had the task of saying goodbye to his five-year-old daughter and telling her he would not be coming back.   “He has had to say to her he is no longer one of those individuals who catches bad people, he has become one of those people himself.”   Mr Naeem said the defendant had, shortly before his offending, been deeply affected by the case he had had dealings with concerning the suicide of a 15-year-old girl and her boyfriend on a railway line.   The barrister said around that time he had been involved in another death of a young child who had suffered a fit.   Mr Naeem said Hussain now felt shame and remorse over what he’d done.   The judge jailed him for a year saying custody was inevitable.   Read more in March’s My Bushey News.