A detective constable who served as one of the first responders to the 2017 London Bridge terror attack has been sacked for gross misconduct after using offensive language about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people in WhatsApp messages, despite claiming humour helped him cope with the trauma.
Detective Constable Mark Luker of British Transport Police was dismissed after a misconduct panel ruled he was likely aware his language was “especially offensive” to a minority community, rejecting his defence that jokes represented a coping mechanism for dealing with the terror attack.
Luker stated he did not intend to be offensive when using the word “pikey” in messages and that humour was one of his ways of dealing with being a first responder to the London Bridge attack. However, the panel concluded his WhatsApp messages contained “deliberate” and “discriminatory” content linking the Irish Traveller community to theft.
The panel wrote: “As an experienced BTP police officer used to dealing with a whole range of people, the panel found that, on the balance of probabilities, he probably would have known that this was an especially offensive use of language directed towards members of a minority community.”
Multiple messages sent between December 2024 and March 2025 on a WhatsApp group called “Selbie Gumshoes” with other members of the Major Serious and Organised Crime team formed the basis of the gross misconduct finding. The panel accepted Luker is not “inherently racist” but ruled the language constituted dismissible offences.
On 31 December 2024, discussing someone winning a bottle of whiskey that still had a security tag attached, Luker wrote: “Was this a raffle on a certain kind of site? Lots of mobile type homes? Lots of ‘Dags’.” He added: “You are the MSOC pikey liaison.”
The term “dags” references a scene from Guy Ritchie film Snatch where Stephen Graham’s character struggles to understand Brad Pitt’s Gypsy character’s accent when he mentions dogs. The panel found the use of “dags” was “derogatory” as it refers to a scene where a Gypsy character’s accent is “mocked.”
The panel found the messages were “deliberate messages, that clearly link the Irish Traveller community to acts of theft.” On 17 March 2025, another group member shared a video of a “Paddy Day parade on Inishbofin” with the message: “Just like a Disney World Parade. They know how to put on a show.”
Luker replied: “Off to find some scrap metal, lead roofing and cable.” He accepted this was a joke to link theft to the Irish Traveller community, the panel was told. The panel concluded the message was “deliberate and discriminatory,” linking the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community to theft.
On 27 March 2025, he again used the word “pikey,” which the panel found to be “disrespectful.” The ruling across multiple messages spanning several months demonstrated a pattern of behaviour rather than an isolated incident.
The dismissal ends Luker’s career as a police officer despite his service record including being among the first responders to the London Bridge terror attack, one of the most significant terror incidents in recent London history. The panel’s decision to dismiss rather than issue lesser sanctions reflects the seriousness with which discriminatory language toward minority communities is treated within police professional standards proceedings.
The case demonstrates that service record and trauma from responding to major incidents do not provide exemption from misconduct proceedings when officers use discriminatory language. The panel’s rejection of the coping mechanism defence establishes that humour involving offensive stereotypes about minority communities cannot be justified even when linked to stress from policing traumatic events.
