A FORMER Surrey Police chief inspector has been jailed for more than 30 fraud offences.
Tanya Brookes, 46, has been imprisoned for two and a half years for illegally obtaining financial benefit from several High Street chain retailers, insurance fraud and travel fraud.
Surrey Police said she was not on duty at the time but used her position as a police officer when carrying out several of the offences.
After her sentencing last week, Assistant Chief Constable Gavin Stephens said: "In her role as a police officer, she should have known better. We expect the highest standards of conduct from all of our employees and this kind of behaviour has no place in Surrey Police."
Brookes and a second senior Surrey Police officer were arrested in January 2012 following initial enquiries and were both suspended from duty while an investigation was carried out
No charges were brought against the second officer, but they were dismissed from the force following an internal misconduct hearing.
Brookes was sacked from the force in November 2012 following a misconduct hearing.
She pleaded guilty to eight charges of fraud when she appeared in court on March 10 this year.
She had previously been convicted of 25 counts of fraud by a jury following a four week trial that concluded on February 28.
Assistant Chief Constable Stephens added: "The sentence handed to Brookes today not only reflects the severity of the offences she committed but also the fact she used her position as a police officer when committing a number of these offences.
"The vast majority of our officers and staff who serve the people of this county are professional and hard-working and the public rightly trust them to act with integrity at all times.
"We will not hesitate to thoroughly investigate any evidence of wrong-doing and take swift action if any officer is involved in criminality.
"This was a complex investigation but thanks to the painstaking work of the officers involved, the scale of offending behaviour by Tanya Brookes was uncovered and she has been brought to justice."
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