AN OXFORDSHIRE police officer has been allowed to keep her job after stopping her boyfriend’s car and then telling him inside information.

PC Laura O’Connor, based in Banbury, had been messaging him on WhatsApp before the stop in December 2018, making arrangements to see him and telling him where she was.

She was a student officer at the time and was being driven by her tutor, a police constable.

Her tutor decided to stop his car but PC O’Connor didn’t say that she knew the driver, or that they were in a relationship.

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During the stop she was then tasked searching his name on the confidential police database.

After the stop she then sent more WhatsApp messages to him and said that her colleagues wanted to search his car.

At a misconduct hearing on July 1, PC O’Connor admitted that her actions lacked ‘integrity’ and that she breached the policing code.

Her actions were so serious that she was found guilty of gross misconduct – an offence that sometimes means officers are fired on the spot and never allowed to work for any police force in the UK again.

This time, she was given a final written warning.

This will stay on her record for 18 months.