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Alice Dobson, a 30-year-old police community support officer from Bradford, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice at court on Friday, 6 November 2026, after confidential operational information she passed to a criminal gang was linked to a plot to kill two men in the city. The case, which Daily Dazzling Dawn understands followed a thorough counter-corruption investigation by West Yorkshire Police, has placed fresh scrutiny on how civilian police staff are vetted, supervised and trusted with sensitive systems. Dobson had already admitted one count of perverting the course of justice and one count of misconduct in public office after accessing police systems without a legitimate reason, seeking to influence police investigations and obtaining confidential information without good reason.
Dobson’s conviction is not simply another chapter in a violent gang prosecution. It is the story of a woman inside the police machine who became an inside woman for men planning murder. That distinction matters because her role was community-facing and civilian, a position built on public trust rather than the enforcement powers of a constable. The court heard that she accessed police systems without legitimate reason and obtained confidential information without good reason. The gang she supplied was later convicted of conspiracy to commit murder after an attack on Usamah Khan, 30, and Zayad Khan, 31, on Tickhill Street in Bradford on 11 May last year.
Usamah Khan managed to get away in a friend’s car but suffered serious injuries to his neck. Zayad Khan ran off but was caught and attacked a second time. When police arrived, they found him with life-changing injuries. Detectives later established that operational information had been passed to the gang by Dobson. She was found guilty of perverting the course of justice, having already admitted a separate count of perverting the course of justice and one count of misconduct in public office.
Five men have been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. They are Mohammed Waqqas Khan, 27, of Folkestone Street, Bradford; Rahees Khan, 42, of no fixed address; Hanzalah Saladin, 27, of no fixed address; Adam Takolia, 29, of no fixed address; and a fifth man who cannot be named for legal reasons. They will be sentenced on 8 February next year. Dobson was bailed with a sentencing date to be fixed. She remains suspended from duty and will face a gross misconduct hearing.
Det Ch Supt Tanya Wilkins, of West Yorkshire Police, told journalists: “This was a calculated, pre-planned, horrific attack on two men on the streets of Bradford where these men thought they could take the law into their own hands.” Addressing Dobson directly, she added: “Our officers and staff are not above the law, and this case is an example of us rightly holding PCSO Dobson to account for her actions following a thorough counter corruption investigation. PCSO Dobson remains suspended from duty and will now face a gross misconduct hearing.”
Much of the coverage of this case has concentrated on the men who plotted the attack. The more unsettling question concerns Dobson herself. A female PCSO occupies a distinctive space in British policing: visible, approachable and often treated as a bridge between the force and the community. That perception can make scrutiny less instinctive. It can also make access to police systems appear routine rather than extraordinary. Daily Dazzling Dawn understands that Dobson’s conduct involved seeking to influence police investigations and obtaining confidential information without good reason, conduct that strikes at the heart of the belief that police data is held safely.
The case raises a specific institutional question. How did a community support officer, whose role is not traditionally investigative, become a conduit for operational intelligence connected to a murder conspiracy? The answer may lie in oversight failures rather than in the powers of the role itself. Civilian staff are essential to modern policing, but their access to sensitive systems must be matched by rigorous auditing, line management and counter-corruption vigilance. Trust in a badge, even a civilian one, cannot be allowed to become a blind spot.
For West Yorkshire Police, the reputational damage extends beyond one conviction. The force must now explain how Dobson’s actions went undetected for long enough to compromise information linked to a serious violent plot. The gross misconduct hearing will determine her employment future, but it will not answer every public question. The victims, Usamah Khan and Zayad Khan, survived an attack that left one with serious neck injuries and the other with life-changing injuries. Their ordeal was made possible, in part, by information that should never have left police systems.
Daily Dazzling Dawn learned that Dobson’s sentencing date has yet to be fixed, while the five men will learn their sentences on 8 February. The legal process will soon conclude, but the institutional reckoning should not. This case is a warning that corruption does not always arrive in the form of a hardened criminal. Sometimes it arrives in the form of a trusted woman in a PCSO uniform, who betrays her badge and becomes a gang’s inside woman.
