Michael Ireland

Introduction

Michael Ireland is a police constable with Devon and Cornwall Police who was dismissed for gross misconduct after a hearing found he swung a drunk prisoner around with such force that the man’s head was smashed into a wall in the custody suite at Newquay police station, losing a tooth. A misconduct hearing in Exeter also heard that Ireland sprayed another arrested man with irritant spray as a “punishment” and verbally abused him, and grabbed a third drunk man by the throat, threatened to “fold him in half in the back of the van” and used force on his legs before placing him in leg restraints . The panel found Ireland was “deliberately dishonest” when he tried to distort the facts to conceal his wrongdoing, and dismissed him from the force .

Background Information

Ireland had transferred to Devon and Cornwall Police in 2022 from Merseyside Police . The incidents documented at the hearing spanned late 2023 and early 2024: the irritant-spray and verbal-abuse incident involving a person he arrested in December 2023, and the custody-suite incident in January 2024 in which the prisoner lost a tooth . All the incidents were recorded by CCTV and body-worn cameras — footage that became the decisive evidence against Ireland’s own account of events . The gross misconduct hearing took place in Exeter, and the panel’s findings were published in a BBC report in November 2026 .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Dismissed for gross misconduct. A misconduct panel found Ireland’s force on detained men unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable, found him deliberately dishonest about it, and dismissed him without notice with placement on the police barred list.

In the Newquay custody suite in January 2024, Ireland swung a drunk prisoner around with such force that the man’s head was smashed into the wall, leaving him with a lost tooth. Ireland claimed the man had “nutted” the door and that “his face connected with the wall”, an account the panel rejected when CCTV evidence showed Ireland’s anger and the force he used . In the December 2023 incident, he sprayed another arrested person with irritant spray and verbally abused him; Ireland later said he used the spray as a “punishment” and in a misconduct interview apologised, saying he should not have said the things he said to the detainee . In a third incident he grabbed a drunk man by the throat, put his finger in the man’s face, used force on his legs and threatened to “fold him in half in the back of the van” before placing him in leg restraints .

The panel found Ireland “deliberately dishonest” when he “tried to distort the facts” to conceal his wrongdoing, and characterized his behaviour in the other two incidents as “unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable” . Ireland later said his conduct “went over the top” . The panel acknowledged “the operational difficulties for officers when dealing with intoxicated, belligerent and — in some cases — passive aggressive persons”, and found some “provocation” in the first case “by way of language and disrespect”, but ruled that this did not excuse his behaviour .

Public Reaction and Consequences

In formally dismissing him, the panel ruled that the public “would not tolerate a police force that accommodated an officer who has behaved” as Ireland had . “Any lesser outcome would only serve to discredit the credibility of the police service and not deter other officers from acting in similar ways and would undermine the public trust and confidence in the police,” the panel said . The consequences are terminal for his policing career: dismissal, with the CCTV and body-worn footage findings — including the deliberate-dishonesty finding — forming the permanent public record of his removal . The case was reported by BBC South West under a headline quoting the smashed-head-into-wall finding, attaching the custody-suite incident to Ireland’s name in coverage of the force’s misconduct record .

Current Status

Ireland has been dismissed from Devon and Cornwall Police after the panel found his force on three detained men grossly misconducted and his accounts of the incidents deliberately dishonest. No appeal against the dismissal has been reported as of the hearing coverage .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Ireland’s policing career, which began with Merseyside Police before his 2022 transfer to Devon and Cornwall, ended in dismissal, with the panel’s findings on record: deliberately dishonest attempts to distort CCTV-evidenced facts, force described as unnecessary, disproportionate and unreasonable, and an admission from Ireland himself that his conduct “went over the top” . At the hearing he apologised for parts of his conduct and said he should not have said the things he said to the detainee — concessions that did not move the panel from the view that anything less than dismissal would discredit the service . The dismissal and the documented findings follow him into any future employment requiring disclosure of his policing record .

Sources

• BBC News, “PC who ‘smashed man’s head into wall’ dismissed,” November 5, 2026 — source