Misconduct panel hears of female Met officer’s drunken assault at Ascot
By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter
A drunken Met cop assaulted a woman at Royal Ascot after her ex-boyfriend started chatting to her, a misconduct hearing has been told.
Hannah Stace, who at the time was a police constable in the Met, shoved the member of the public in the shoulder during the incident at the races in June 2022, the panel heard on Tuesday.
After the altercation, Stace, who was attached to the South-east London unit covering Lewisham and Greenwich, told police that the other woman had started the fight. But the misconduct panel disagreed.
She added that her former partner was trying to wind her up by chatting up other women. Her ex-boyfriend, who is also a police officer, claimed Stace struggled to handle drink and could become “emotional”.
In another incident that took place in March 2022, Stace assaulted a colleague while drunk at a police private members’ club.
Stace pushed another officer backwards at the event at the Grade-II listed The Warren Metropolitan Police Sports Club in Bromley.
A misconduct panel found that during the altercation Stace mentioned a complaint the other officer had made against her about another alleged assault in 2021.
The other officer later dropped the complaint, claiming she was too busy seeing to her parents who were in ill health.
During an interview under caution, Stace claimed the other officer had been giving her dirty looks at the event. But the panel found that CCTV from the venue didn’t support Stace’s claims.
Stace resigned from the Met in August 2022, two months after the Royal Ascot incident, and didn’t attend the misconduct hearing. A panel sitting at Palaestra House in Southwark this week found Stace would have been dismissed without notice if she had still been a serving officer.
Panel chairman Cameron Brown said: “It was inappropriate for a member of the Metropolitan Police Service to get drunk on two occasions and assault individuals due to her perceived grievances with them.”
The Met declined to comment. No criminal charges were brought.
Picture: Ascot, pictured last year (Picture : Fabiopao/Wikimedia Commons)