A POLICE officer based in Newquay has been dismissed after deliberately throwing a drunken, handcuffed man against a custody suite wall, breaking his front tooth, before lying to colleagues and providing a false written account of how the injuries happened.

PC Michael Ireland, who had served in policing since 2007, was also found to have used excessive force against two other intoxicated men during separate arrests in Newquay over a six-week period.

He sprayed a man in the face with an incapacitant spray during one incident before subjecting him to a string of insults. During another incident, he grabbed a handcuffed man by the throat and threatened to “fold him in half in the back of the van”.

However, it was PC Ireland’s deliberate dishonesty after injuring a detainee inside Newquay Custody Centre that proved particularly damaging.

A misconduct panel found he had attempted to conceal his actions, first by claiming the detainee had struck his own head against a wall and then by repeating a false explanation in an official statement.

The panel concluded that his conduct amounted to gross misconduct and that dismissal without notice was the only appropriate outcome.

The most serious incident occurred on January, 26 2024, after PC Ireland arrested a man who was heavily intoxicated.

The man was handcuffed behind his back and taken to Newquay Custody Centre.

PC Ireland deliberately propelled him against a wall with considerable force while inside the custody suite causing injuries to his face, head and mouth, including a broken front tooth.

PC Ireland told a colleague that them had “just nutted the door” rather than acknowledge what he had done.

He subsequently provided a written statement claiming that the man had lurched forward and his face had connected with the wall while the officer was taking hold of his arm.

PC Ireland denied deliberately throwing the man against the wall. He maintained that he had been attempting to turn the detainee towards the exit door when the collision occurred.

He also referred to his unfamiliarity with the layout of the custody area, compared with other custody facilities. But CCTV footage provided the panel with a different account.

The panel found PC Ireland had intentionally propelled the man into the wall. It also rejected his explanation concerning the layout of the building.

PC Ireland, who had transferred to Devon and Cornwall Police from Merseyside in 2022, was not present at the hearing and left the force in December 2025.

The panel acknowledged the operational difficulties police officers can face when dealing with intoxicated, belligerent or aggressive people.

It found PC Ireland had not merely used unjustified force but had attempted to distort the circumstances in which it occurred and concluded that his culpability for operational dishonesty was very high.

The panel stated: “The public in the panel’s view, would not tolerate a police force that accommodated an officer who has behaved as the officer had.”

The panel concluded Ireland would have been dismissed without notice had he not left the force beforehand.