Rookie cop sacked over secret affair with married boss runs magnificence salon yards from his new cheese store

A rookie police officer who had a secret affair with her married boss is now running a beauty business just yards the artisan deli he has set up.

Caitlin Howarth, 26, was just weeks into her fledgling career with West Yorkshire Police when she embarked on an illicit relationship with chief superintendent Daniel Greenwood – a father-of-two 17 years her senior.

At the time, Mr Greenwood was Bradford’s £103,000-a-year ‘silver commander’ in charge of the city’s Covid response and enforcing strict lockdown rules.

Yet while the public were ordered to stay at home, the senior officer would sneak off for secret trysts with the young probationer.

The forbidden romance – which saw the pair swap sexually explicit messages and pictures – sparked ‘tittle-tattle’ and ‘gossip in the ranks’, a misconduct panel would later hear.

Now it has emerged that the former lovers have reinvented themselves as high street near-neighbours in the affluent market town of Bingley, West Yorkshire.

Mr Greenwood, 42, who quit his 21-year policing career in September 2024 just days before he could be formally dismissed for gross misconduct.

He subsequently reinvented himself as a cheesemaker, opening artisan Deli @ Eldwick Creamery with wife Laura, 43, describing how events led him to ‘reevaluate my life’.

Yet just 150 metres away – barely a 70-second stroll – his former lover is now also building a brand of her own.

Ms Howarth, who posts glamorous selfies to her 12,000 Instagram followers, has launched herself as a self-employed beautician under the name ‘By Cait’.

She rents a base at the Amythyst Clinic selling £200 microblading and £240 ‘permanent lipstick’ procedures.

Sharing a beaming photograph of herself clutching a certificate last October, she told followers: ‘Recently qualified in semi permanent make up and will be offering lip blush & microblading treatments.’

‘Had an amazing training experience and left feeling so confident. Cannot wait to start this new venture,’ she added.

Mr Greenwood was first introduced to Ms Howarth in 2019 when she was aged 20, after her mother – a governor at his children’s primary school – sought advice on joining the police after university.

But a tribunal later concluded his motivations ‘morphed, at least in part, into sexual self-interest’.

After meeting in person in March 2020, the pair began swapping flirty messages and sexually explicit images.

They had sex during the January 2021 Covid lockdown – shortly after her 21st birthday and just seven weeks into her probation as a PC – and again in July that year.

The affair only came to light when Ms Howarth was investigated by anti-corruption officers after matching with a drug dealer on Tinder.

When she told Mr Greenwood of her contact with Joseph Shaw, he ironically replied: ‘He won’t stop until he’s shagged you. That’s not ok.’

Once the relationship surfaced in November 2021, a panicked Mr Greenwood attempted a factory reset on his iPhone in a bid to wipe evidence.

A misconduct hearing in September 2024 heard how senior officers raised concerns after he disclosed her GCSE results to HR, personally delivered her uniform and attended her occupational health appointment.

Quizzed over the relationship, Greenwood insisted the ‘sexual attraction and flirtation was mutual’ and claimed it was ‘habitually initiated’ by Ms Howarth, alleging she ‘found older men… more attractive’.

She, meanwhile, said she did not have sex with Greenwood because of his rank but ‘because I was going through a rough time with my boyfriend’.

‘I ended up getting feelings and then that’s how it happened,’ she told investigators.

‘He always asked me to delete the messages. I think he deleted them so that his wife didn’t see but he used to say make sure you delete the pictures or delete the messages.’

‘Rumour was rife’ over the fling among colleagues, the hearing in Wakefield was told.

Mr Greenwood, who was once tipped to become a chief officer, admitted discreditable conduct amounting to gross misconduct.

A disciplinary panel ruled he had abused his position of trust and would have been sacked had he not already resigned. Mr Greenwood has since been barred from policing indefinitely.

Ms Howarth was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, but charges were later dropped and disciplinary proceedings were quietly shelved last year.

Mr Greenwood is understood to remain with his wife, living in a £500,000 house in Bingley. The couple are both listed as directors of Eldwick Creamery Ltd.

He wrote on the firm’s website in 2024 : ‘The strains and distractions of becoming an adult took over until events in 2020/2021 made me reevaluate my life.

‘I had always flirted with the idea of cheesemaking.

‘One cold November morning in 2021, I decided to change the course of my life.’

The firm’s website now states: ‘Eldwick Creamery Ltd was formed in 2022 by Daniel and Laura, a husband and wife who had ambitions of starting their own business to help them create a work/life balance and spend as much time with their children as they could.’