Natalie Dolan
Introduction
Natalie Dolan is a former police sergeant with Greater Manchester Police who was dismissed without notice after a four-day misconduct hearing found she exchanged offensive WhatsApp messages with a student officer she was responsible for training — including terms a panel concluded mocked disabled people — while also sharing confidential information and failing to manage a conflict of interest. The panel, chaired by GMP’s Chief Resource Officer Lee Rawlinson, cleared her of the racist and sexist allegations the force had advanced, but found the disability-related and confidentially breaches so serious that only dismissal would do. She was placed on the College of Policing Barred List.
Background Information
Dolan was a serving sergeant with 25 years’ service whose role included training and supervising student officers — the team, as the force’s barrister put it, “supposed to be teaching new students how to behave.” Between April 2021 and July 2022 she exchanged messages with a former trainee, named in the hearing only as PC Jones, over a period of about eighteen months. The proceedings arose after the messages were discovered during a criminal investigation involving another officer; the matter was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and returned to GMP for misconduct proceedings.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Mixed findings. The gross-misconduct findings below were made by a GMP misconduct panel after a contested four-day hearing at which Dolan admitted using disparaging or offensive words but denied they were racist, sexist or discriminatory. The panel rejected the racist and sexist allegations as not proven; the disability-related findings below are its formal adjudications, not criminal convictions.
Among the messages examined by the panel were comments describing people as “spacker,” “muppets,” “twat/tosser,” “shitbag,” “twit” and “little cunt.” The panel concluded the term “spacker” amounted to mocking disabled people and was discriminatory, and found Dolan had mocked student officers, including through references to “Harveys who need to be read to” — an apparent reference to Harvey Price, the disabled son of Katie Price, who publicly condemned the messages after the hearing. Her counsel, Jennifer Ferrario, argued the “Harvey” comment was a joke based on a social media GIF and that “spacker” and “licker” were typos for “slacker” and “ar** licker”; the panel rejected those defences and ruled the language was “mocking of disabled people” and “discriminatory.” The panel found 23 messages contained disparaging or offensive remarks about fellow officers and four explicitly mocked student officers, and that Dolan had also referred to Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson as an “ar*e.”
The panel also found she shared confidential information relating to colleagues, police processes and student officers without any proper policing purpose, and that a conflict of interest arose because she continued exchanging inappropriate messages with a student officer while occupying a supervisory role over trainees, failing to manage or report it. It rejected the force’s allegations that the messages amounted to racist or sexist conduct, finding those aspects not proven — including a claimed “recruiting at the mosque” remark. The panel concluded the combined breaches of Honesty and Integrity, Confidentiality, Authority, Respect and Courtesy, Equality and Diversity, Discreditable Conduct, and Challenging and Reporting Improper Conduct amounted to gross misconduct.
Public Reaction and Consequences
Dolan was dismissed without notice on April 30, 2026, after the hearing at GMP headquarters, and placed on the College of Policing Barred List, preventing her from serving as a police officer in the future. Katie Price condemned the officer’s behaviour on social media after the verdict. The panel acknowledged her 25 years of service and substantial personal mitigation but found a “serious departure from expected ethical standards,” with Rawlinson stating the only option was dismissal. Separately, the Information Commissioner’s Office later found GMP itself had “not complied with its obligations under data protection law” in how it handled the messages as evidence — a finding about the force’s process, not about the misconduct findings. She was reported to be pursuing multiple legal challenges over the data handling.
Current Status
Dolan was dismissed in April 2026 and is on the barred list. Her reported legal challenges concern GMP’s evidence handling and data-protection compliance, not a reinstatement claim, and no overturning of the misconduct outcome was reported in the sources available.
Impact on Their Career/Life
A quarter-century career ended over an eighteen-month private message thread with a trainee. The case’s shape is notable: the panel found the force had over-reached on racism and sexism, yet still concluded the ableist mockery and confidentiality breaches by an officer whose job was teaching ethics to recruits were irredeemable. The barred-list entry excludes her from policing permanently, and the case became nationally known through coverage of the Harvey Price messages.