Senior police officer quits

A senior police officer resigned yesterday over an alleged relationship with a married civilian employee in his force.

Stephen Males, 48, the Assistant Chief Constable of Wiltshire, handed his resignation to Chief Constable Walter Girven at the force's Devizes headquarters on return from secondment in Nepal.

In his absence, Mr Girven had ordered an investigation into national newspaper allegations concerning Mr Males, a married man with two children, and a statistics officer, Pamela Brooks, who is also married. Mr Males had once been tipped as a future chief constable.