A former North Yorkshire Police officer has been found to have committed gross misconduct after he crashed on the way home after a night shift.

Jakub Sikora now also has a criminal conviction and is no longer a police officer.

Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty at York Magistrates' Court to dangerous driving in relation to the the incident at a busy junction on the York Outer Ring Road.

He was banned from driving for a year and ordered to take an extended driving test before driving again on his own, fined £1,000 and ordered to pay a £400 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.

He resigned from the police force the day after he was sentenced, but was still made subject to a disciplinary hearing at North Yorkshire Police’s headquarters.

The tribunal heard Sikora had been tired when he was driving because he had just finished a night shift and crashed into street furniture.

No member of the public was injured in the incident but the street furniture was damaged.

Sikora, of Selby, was driving a 10-year-old Seat Ibiza at the A64 / A19 interchange on the York Outer Ring Road on March 17 when the incident happened.

He did not attend the accelerated disciplinary hearing chaired by Chief Constable Lisa Winward but was represented.

Sikora accepted his driving and his subsequent conviction amounted to gross misconduct.

The Chief Constable declared in her formal findings at the end of the hearing: “This is a serious breach of the standards of professional behaviour, which has the potential to seriously damage the reputation of policing generally and North Yorkshire Police in particular.

“These breaches exceed the threshold of purely unacceptable or improper behaviour and reaches the threshold of being so serious that it constitutes gross misconduct.”

The hearing was told that Sikora had not planned his bad driving but he had made a genuine mistake because he was so tired.

The chief constable declared: “There is actual harm in this case due to the crash, namely harm to the reputation of North Yorkshire Police, delay to traffic and damage to street furniture.

"The harm risked was death or serious injury. The CCTV shows other vehicles driving on the Fulford Interchange, a busy roundabout in York at the relevant time. A difference of seconds could have led to loss of life.”

She also found that Sikora’s driving ban made him “non-operational” as he couldn’t drive.

She said that if she didn’t take action there was the possibility that he would be able to take a position with another police force enforcing the rules of the road whilst being banned from driving and convicted of dangerous driving.

She therefore decided that he should be dismissed without notice for gross misconduct and that he be put on the national list of people barred from being appointed to a police force. Sikora can apply to have his name removed from the list in five years’ time.