Dozens of law enforcement officials and civilian workers who faked exercise on keyboards whereas working from house have been dismissed prior to now three years.
More than 50 police and civilian staff have been sacked or ordered to resign in the past three years after faking activity on their keyboards while working from home.
Constabulary employees are either pressing the same keys repeatedly or weighing them down with items such as staplers or drink cans to give the impression they are busy.
They have been caught using ‘keystroke software’ which detects unusual keyboard activity.
Greater Manchester Police alone identified 28 members of staff who had been ‘key jamming’ computers and other devices following a probe by anti-corruption investigators.
Four people have already been dismissed and two have resigned, while Chief Constable Stephen Watson has banned working from home as the investigation continues.
An insider told The Times, which unearthed the scale of the scam with Freedom of Information requests and public records checks: ‘Some of the staff were weighing down the space bar to pretend to be working but instead were spending the day at the gym.’
An Avon and Somerset PC, Liam Reakes, resigned before a misconduct panel could look into his behaviour after he was found to have been pushing on the ‘Z’ key with an object for a total of 103 hours between June and September 2024.
Another PC, Ryan Lenton, of Kent’s investigation management team, used the scam for 60 hours during 14 shifts in April and May last year so he could visit the gym and the golf course.
More than 50 police officers and civilian staff have been dismissed in the past three years for faking activity on electronic devices while working from home
Greater Manchester Police chief constable Stephen Watson has banned working from home
The dismissals have occurred at 14 forces, although the Met Police – the UK’s largest force – said it couldn’t provide data without exceeding costs allowed for FoI requests, meaning the problem could be much larger.
Some 49 per cent of British workers, or around 22.7 million people, were working from home in December 2025, with 14 per cent working fully remotely and 35 per cent in hybrid roles.
