Dean Nocivelli’s ex partner said she came round with blood running into the bath and her face felt ‘like it was broken’.
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A police officer responsible for dispatching officers to domestic violence incidents has lost his job for assaulting his former partner.
Police Sergeant 269 Dean Nocivelli has been dismissed without notice for the attack more than a decade ago. Finding an allegation of assault/domestic abuse proved a Gwent Police misconduct panel found Police Sergeant 269 Dean Nocivelli’s behaviour amounted to gross misconduct.
Nocivelli denied the allegation saying he and his former partner had knocked heads in the bedroom of their home, which is how she came to need hospital treatment for injuries including a swollen left eye, a cut lip, swollen face, black upper lip (underneath) and bruising to the left side of her face and neck, the hearing was told.
His now former partner, referred to as Person A to protect her identity, only reported the matter to his employer many years later because she was more aware of the need to disclose domestic violence and was worried that he was now a supervisor in the force and responsible for sending officers to domestic violence incidents. Read the biggest stories in Wales first by signing up to our daily newsletter here.
The panel was told she met Nocivelli while they were both studying at university In 2009 they took out a mortgage and moved into a house together.
On or about June 19, 2010, they went for a night out drinking in Newport ending the evening at the Walkabout pub, the panel, sitting in Cwmbran from December 11 to 15, was told.
The police officer was drunk and the couple argued. They then got a taxi home together where the row continued. Person A alleged that during the “heated argument” in their bedroom she was punched to the face by the officer. She fell so hard onto the bed that she said she heard it snap.
Her next recollection was that Nocivelli was crying and that she had her head over the bath.
“Blood was running into the bath and her face felt ‘like it was broken’. Person A then consoled PS Nocivelli as he was crying. The officer was allegedly screaming, “What have I done?”. the panel heard.
The following day it is alleged the pair concocted a story to conceal the true cause of the injuries. A few days later on June 29, 2010, Nocivelli went with his former partner too the Royal Gwent Hospital accident and emergency department.
Person A told the hearing that when a nurse asked her what happened she denied it was Nocivelli that caused the injuries as she, “did not want him to lose his job”.
She told the nurse: “He would never hurt me, he is a police officer”. All the facts are detailed in a written report of the police misconduct hearing, now published online.
Person A finished the relationship with Nocivelli around November 2010.
She had not reported the matter at the time but had told some colleagues, friends and partners about the assault in June 2010. The officer’s mother had also seen Person A’s facial injuries on or about June 20, 2010 when she saw her at an upstairs window when she visited the property, the panel was told.
The hearing was told that the officer “firmly denied” the allegation saying that the injuries were accidently caused after heads clashed during the row in their bedroom.
An investigation was only launched years later when Gwent Police Professional Standards Department were informed of Person A’s allegations of historic domestic abuse in October 2023, 14 years after Nocivelli joined the force.
In a statement, Person A documented also a series of other alleged domestic incidents. Most of the incidents she outlined happened before the Nocivelli became a police constable, but some occurred during his service as a police officer.
Finding the allegation of assault in the bedroom proved and that it amounted gross misconduct: the panel said that while there was no evidence of the officer having had a history of domestic violence involving any other partner and no physical or forensic evidence, nor any means of independently corroborating the detail of the incident, Person A was a credible witness.
On the other hand Nocivelli was not a credible witness, they found. His blanket claim of a lack of recall was not credible, the panel said.
“He was a trained response officer who would deal with such situations on a regular basis. There were probably four stages where he could have extracted himself from an obviously escalating situation, the public house, the taxi ride, downstairs in the property and upstairs prior to the index event.
“He would also have had trained and practised conflict management training and de-escalation skills including the National Decision Model (NDM) – all designed to manage and de-escalate conflict. He did not employ the most obvious tactic of flight.”
His former partner had also recounted other incidents which she could have embellished, but did not. These included an incident when she said she was sleeping with the officer and woke up in the morning with a black eye. In her witness statement to the hearing she said she did not, “know if it was an accident or not”.
As she “stuck to this story during her oral evidence the panel considered this was just one example of her honesty and, had she been malicious, she could have easily embellished the officer’s culpability.
Person A had also outlined a further incident which occurred at around the same time between 2006 to 2007 when she had fallen down a flight of stairs that was associated with the officer making physical contact with her.
During cross examination in the hearing she had been “very careful not to be unfairly definitive about the officer’s culpability stating she could not say if she was deliberately pushed, but that the fall was a result of “contact” from the officer”.
She could have “easily exaggerated her account to the detriment of the officer but was once again clearly demonstrating honesty”, the panel found, adding: “We were satisfied that these prior allegations support the contention that the officer had a propensity to behave aggressively and/or forcefully towards Person A.”
The committee accepted Person A’s memory ‘blanks’ were genuine and consistent with her claim that she had attempted to block some of the events out as a “coping mechanism”.
If she had been a vindictive witness “as suggested” she would not have concocted a story with her attacked at the Royal Gwent A&E designed to protect him and his job.
The panel said it also “gave weight” to notes from the Royal Gwent Hospital A&E completed about 10 days after the incident.
These notes recorded Person A told medical staff that the injury was caused by her being ‘punched’.
“Person A had initially maintained a concocted story that she had fallen in the bathroom hitting taps but on attending hospital she stated she had been assaulted in the street by two girls. These stories were intended to protect the officer from investigation,” the committee found.
The panel also accepted her reasons for only later making the allegations saying over the years she had developed greater awareness of domestic violence issues. Now working as a manager and supervisor of people she felt that, as a victim of domestic abuse, it was “hypocritical” not to set an example and address what had happened to her.
She was also “concerned that the perpetrator was now a supervisor responsible for dispatching officers to domestic violence incidents”. She told the panel she wanted to be an “upstander not a bystander” and was anxious about encountering Nocivelli.
Sumarisng their findings the panel said the officer “committed violent domestic abuse and has a history of some aggression. He was aware of the direct and wider consequences and impact of domestic violence and abuse at the time of the charged incident”.
There were mitigating factors in that a significant period of time had passed without any repetition of this kind of misconduct by the officer, it was a single episode with no evidence of premeditation or planning.
The officer “has given some good service to Gwent Police, and the public, in the period between the index incident and his suspension”, the panel added.
However, he was already on a Final Written warning in 2022, for an unrelated matter.
Nocivelli had the right to appeal the finding of gross misconduct within 10 working days of the decision handed down at the end of the five day hearing on December 15.
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