Misconduct in public office

Misconduct in public office (MiPO) is a common law offence that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. A mixture of case law has meant the offence has drifted somewhat from its intended purpose, leading the government to introduce new statutory offences in the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, often referred to as the ‘Hillsborough Law’.

How is the offence defined?

A 2020 Law Commission report states that MiPO “is one of the most notoriously difficult offences to define in England and Wales”. ¹⁷ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/601bec27e90e0711cc85dd91/Misconduct-in-public-office-WEB11.pdf p1  The past few decades have seen a substantial body of case law that has “refined and in some cases shifted, the terms of the offence”.

The Crown Prosecution Service ¹⁸ https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/misconduct-public-office  advice says the offence is committed when:

• a public officer acting as such
• wilfully neglects to perform their duty and/or wilfully misconducts themselves
• to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder
• without reasonable excuse or justification.

This means that the person must be defined as a public officer. Previous cases have helped to define what types of role are considered public office. However, there have been more novel uses of the offence to prosecute journalists for aiding and abetting the offence. ¹⁹ For example as part of the Operation Elveden investigation into allegation of inappropriate payments to police officers and other public officials  The Law Commission called for a clearer definition of the limits of ‘public office’. 

The offence is also deemed to have been committed when the person was ‘acting as’ a public officer, not just when they have committed another offence ‘whilst’ a public officer. That means that the action that is believed to have been an offence – wilful misconduct, neglect or breach of duty – must be connected to the authority, responsibility or duties the suspect held in the office.

The offence is also defined by it being a wilful act. The offender must have been “deliberately doing something which is wrong knowing it to be wrong or with reckless indifference as to whether it is wrong or not”. ²⁰ https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/misconduct-public-office   

The seriousness of the offence is also a factor. There is a high bar, previously defined as "… an affront to the standing of the public office held. The threshold is a high one requiring conduct so far below acceptable standards as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder." The director of public prosecutions (DPP) may decide that the threshold has not been met and a case is not worth bringing, but if the case does go to court, it would then be up to a jury ultimately to decide. 

Finally, it must be an offence that does not have a reasonable excuse. The prosecution do not need to prove the absence of a reasonable excuse for prosecution. 

Because of the ambiguities around the definition and scope of MiPO and the difficulty of establishing all elements of the offence, police and prosecutors have tended to rely on other specific statutory offences where available.

Have elected politicians been prosecuted before?

No MP has been successfully prosecuted for MiPO and MPs are rarely charged with the offence – in part because of the high threshold for bringing charges and many hurdles for securing a conviction discussed above. There can be no doubt that a minister of the crown, whether in the Commons or Lords, would be regarded as holding public office and could therefore in principle be prosecuted for MiPO for misconduct related to that office, if the other legal tests were met (but they rarely are). 

Between 2014 and 2024 some 191 people were convicted of MiPO: 92% were prison officers or police officers, and 98% were junior to mid-level public officials. ²² https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2026/february/peter-mandelson/  

Former prime minister Boris Johnson and others who violated lockdown laws were not charged under this offence. The many MPs prosecuted in the wake of the expenses scandal were prosecuted for other offences including false accounting under the Theft Act.

Politicians have however been arrested, or sometimes charged with MiPO including:

• 2009: Damian Green was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit, and being an accessory to charges of misconduct in public office brought against a junior Home Office civil servant, Christopher Galley. Charges were dropped for both, as the then DPP, Keir Starmer, decided not to prosecute as the case did not meet the high threshold for criminal proceedings. 
• 2016: UK MEP Nikki Sinclaire was tried for MiPO having been accused of making false or dishonest travel expense claims and fraudulently transferring criminal property into her bank account. She was cleared. 
• 2025: Dan Norris MP was arrested on suspicion of a string of sexual offences from the 2000s – when he was previously an MP – and 2020s alongside the charge of misconduct in public office. As of January 2026 the investigation is ongoing.

As DPP, Keir Starmer was involved in several of the decisions to prosecute, or not, MPs for MiPO. 

What is thought to be lacking in the law?

Because of the difficulties of securing convictions for high-level public officials there have been several reviews of the offence and recommendations made for reform. The issues with the common law offence of MiPO have been highlighted many times by different bodies including the Salmon Commission, Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL), Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, and the Law Commission which published a final report on the matter in 2020.

The Law Commission found that increased use of the offence in recent decades has exacerbated existing issues with the offence. Key issues in its report are:

• a lack of clarity on the terms and extent of the current offence
• the risk of overuse and misuse of the offence, leading to injustice
• its use as a catch all offence, in place of more targeted statutory offences
• a concern that it is used mostly against junior officials rather than senior decision makers

The Law Commission recommended that the common law offence be replaced with a statutory offence. 

What has the government sought to do about it?

The government introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill – known as the Hillsborough Law – to the Commons on 16 September 2025. The bill consists of several key elements, including a statutory ‘duty of candour’ and duty to assist and requires that every public authority adopt a code of conduct based on the Nolan principles to strengthen ethical frameworks in the public sector. 
Codes of conduct will have to set out what it means to act with candour within that organisations and establish clear whistleblowing procedures. The government’s new Ethics and Integrity Commission has been tasked with overseeing public bodies’ efforts to create and implement these codes. 

The bill also aims to replace the common law offence of MiPO with two new statutory offences; breaching the duty to prevent death or serious injury (up to 14 years’ imprisonment) and seriously improper conduct (up to 10 years). The bill also includes a commitment to introduce a statutory list of roles that amount to “public office”. the government says the new statutory offences are “intended to continue to capture wrongdoing at the most serious level”. ²⁴ Explanatory notes to the bill, para 37 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0306/en/240306en.pdf