A German police officer has lost an appeal to overturn his dismissal after stealing 180kg of cheddar cheese from the scene of an accident.
The highway patrol officer attended an accident in 2019 in Rhenish Palatinate where a refrigerated container truck had overturned.
According to the Trier Administrative Court, after the investigation of the accident was complete, the police officer drove to the scene in a police minibus. Wearing his uniform, he asked employees of a recovery company to hand him some undamaged cheese packages – worth around €550 (£480) in total – from the container.
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He loaded nine large packs of cheddar cheese, each weighing 20kg, into the police vehicle. Two were left in a social area at the police station, one was taken to a colleague’s car but the other six packs were not accounted for.
German news site SWR reported that he told his superior officer that the cheese had been lying in the road and it had been “released”.
In 2022, a regional court found him guilty of stealing the cheese and issued him a warning and a fine.
Judges have now decided it necessary to remove the police officer from service, for a serious disciplinary offence for both stealing the cheese while on duty and in uniform and for lying to his superiors to cover up his crime.
According to the Trier Administrative Court, the police officer had “no sense of wrongdoing”. He had damaged the reputation of the police force, the court said, because his uniform, the police minibus and his service weapon made him recognisable as a police officer to everyone at the scene.
In his appeal, the German police officer said the cheese was worthless because it was no longer refrigerated and would have gone to waste. He also argued that he did not eat the cheese himself, adding that he did not even like cheddar.
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