Leicestershire and Rutland's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has faced a private meeting over complaints relating to allegations of misconduct in office, despite challenges to make the meeting public.

The meeting was held in private on Wednesday 21 January, as part of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Police Crime Panel's complaints subcommittee, with PCC Rupert Matthews in attendance.

The meeting began with the chairman of the committee, Councillor Les Phillimore, calling the leaking of "confidential papers" relating to the allegations against the PCC to the media as "disappointing".

It is alleged that Mr Matthews asked a police officer to help organise a photograph with a horse for election campaign material. The officer was serving with Leicestershire Police at the time of the alleged request.

Cllr Phillimore said: "We appear to be in an extremely disappointing position where confidential papers relating to today's meeting have been disclosed to the media outlets in advance of today's meeting, which undermines the individual's privacy and integrity of the informal resolution process."

Despite a challenge from LeicestershireLive and the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) earlier this week to make the meeting public, council officials decided to keep it behind closed doors.

Both LeicestershireLive and the LDRS argued that Mr Matthews is an elected official, and that his constituents have a right to know that elected officials are being scrutinised and held to account.

However, Leicestershire County Council refused the request.

A council spokesperson said: "The Panel's Complaints Subcommittee Procedure provides that, when it is considering a complaint under the informal resolution process, the Subcommittee meets in private. The competing public interest in maintaining the exemption to protect individuals' privacy and to enable an effective informal resolution process is likely to outweigh disclosure at this stage."

Any outcome from the private meeting is not known at this stage.

It was revealed earlier on Wednesday that the complaint against Mr Matthews was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in September 2025.

An IOPC spokesperson said: "We received a complaint referral in September 2025 from the Leicestershire Police & Crime Panel, relating to allegations of intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence and misconduct in public office. The offences were alleged to have happened when a request was made to a serving police officer to participate in promotional election material.

"Following a considered assessment of the referral, we returned the matter to the Panel to be dealt with as it deemed appropriate, as we did not find evidence to indicate a criminal offence may have been committed."

The office for the PCC confirmed Mr Matthews had met the officer "several times", but that no criminal offence had been committed, as per the IOPC's findings.

A spokesperson said: "Any complaint or allegation of misconduct against the Police and Crime Commissioner is treated strictly in line with the Elected Local Policing Bodies (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2012.

"We can confirm that a report was received relating to an email sent by the Police and Crime Commissioner which was, in line with the requirements of the legislation, referred to the IOPC for assessment in September. The IOPC confirmed that it did not find evidence to indicate a criminal offence may have been committed and returned the matter to the Police and Crime Panel.

"It is a fact that Mr Matthews has met the officer concerned several times for public engagement purposes. Mr Matthews has never made any secret of the fact he is extremely frightened of horses and this has been mentioned, with good humour, every time a horse or pony has been involved in the event. He would never seek to work with them out of choice."

Mr Matthews was first elected as Leicestershire's Police and Crime Commissioner in 2021, having previously served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Conservatives.

In August 2025, he defected to Reform UK.