GMP officer told supervisor she’d held her Covid wedding over FaceTime – but she was caught out

A GMP officer ‘lied’ about her wedding after she was caught breaking Covid rules during the pandemic, a misconduct hearing has heard.

Former PC Manisa Matloob was visited by police after they were called to reports of a party at her home in Oldham on 17 March 2021, as the country was coming out of a third national lockdown.

Upon entering the house, officers found the halls were decorated and ‘a number of females’ were dressed in traditional clothes.

Matloob later told her supervisor that this was an Islamic wedding ceremony conducted via video call using FaceTime with only her family present. She provided a marriage certificate stating that her wedding took place on this day.

However, when questioned by police, the Imam who conducted her wedding confirmed the ceremony took place at a different address three days later.

Matloob also said the wedding was brought forward because of her parent’s poor health, but an investigation found that her mother had a throat infection.

At the time, weddings were permitted, but only six people could attend.

Representing GMP at the misconduct hearing, solicitor Martin Forshaw told the panel that many of the claims Matloob made about that evening – in a message to her supervisor the day after and in statements months later – were ‘lies’.

Mr Forshaw said the breach of the Covid rules is not the most serious form of misconduct. But he argued that Matloob’s failure to provide a truthful account about the incident means her actions amount to a breach of the Standards of Professional Behaviour of Discreditable Conduct and Honesty and Integrity.

He said: “During the course of the investigation, there were several occasions where she had the opportunity to come clean and explain what had actually happened.

“That culminated in her providing a false marriage certificate to the Professional Standards department to support these untruths, implicating her husband, implicating the Imam involved as well as attempting to mislead the investigating officers.”

Matloob resigned from the force in April ahead the misconduct hearing, which was held on 18 May. The hearing panel found that all the allegations against Matloob proved. The panel also found that the officer breached the standards of professional behaviour and that her actions amount to gross misconduct.

Mr Jones, the legally qualified chair of the panel, concluded: “The only steps that we could have taken was that if she was in service that we would have directed dismissal and it follows then that she would go onto the barred list.”

Matloob did not attend the misconduct hearing which was held online, nor was she represented. She will now also be barred from serving in any police force.

Joseph Timan, Local Democracy Reporting Service