Three police officers in the "Plebgate" row have apologised for "poor judgment in talking to the media" after a meeting with ex-Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell.
Inspector Ken MacKaill, Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton and Sergeant Chris Jones were spared misconduct proceedings by an internal police investigation after they were accused of trying to discredit the politician.
But the Independent Police Complaints Commisison disputed the West Mercia Police's findings and said there were issues of "honesty and integrity" among the three Police Federation representatives.
In a Police Federation statement the three officers fell short of apologising for the comments they made but insisted they never intended to mislead anyone.
It said: "The reputation of, and public confidence in, the police service is of immense concern to each of us. We acknowledge the investigation's criticism relating to our poor judgment in talking to the media following the meeting with Andrew Mitchell, for which we take this opportunity to apologise.
"We would like to emphasise - as we did to the investigation - that in no way did any of us ever plan or intend to mislead anyone about what occurred during this meeting or otherwise."
Mr Mitchell met the Police Federation representatives after he was accused of calling officers at Downing Street "plebs" as he was asked to cycle through a side gate last September 19 . Scotland Yard's subsequent inquiry, Operation Alice, has cost more than £230,000.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article