Opposition Public Safety Minister Patricia Gordon Pamplin has called for Police to come clean over sick leave figures after claims some officers were abusing the time off allowance for illness.

Three officers have told The Royal Gazette that taking sick leave has become routine among some officers and is affecting morale but the Service is refusing to release statistics.

One senior officer told The Royal Gazette that a woman in his section spent about a third of her work time sick with a variety of complaints while another Police officer had spent 14 months off with a "lower back problem".

The source said: "Nothing was ever found to be wrong with her. People are taking the p*ss. There's general abuse throughout the Service, mainly by women."

He said the problem was exacerbated by the process of allowing Police to take two days off without any doctor's note.

And he said doctors were happy to hand out sick notes after the two days because malingerers were a good source of repeat business.

The officer said: "Any sick leave should be certified by a specific doctor not known to give them out."

Stay away officers put an extra burden on those who have to cover them - a particular problem in areas covered by small units, said the officer.

"It's anarchy. People are getting away with it so people just do it. They have been getting away with it for so long. It's demoralising for those people who genuinely want to work."

Another officer said the problem had become so bad in central CID division over recent months that a board of shame was erected in the office to embarrass the worst offenders.

The officer said: "The figures quickly went down after that."

He said he knew of one officer who had taken more than two months off with genuine injuries, one of which was sustained in the course of duty, but he had only just made it into the top 100 list of stay away Police officers according to internal figures.

A Police spokesman said: "We are not at liberty to release figures. As a matter of course, we don't release them.

"But there hasn't been any significant increase in sick leave over the last year but I still have to take into account that the year has not finished yet.

"I can't say definitively that no officer has abused it but there is no trend that abuse of sick leave is increasing. Whether or not each Police officer uses it to the letter I can't confirm."

Mrs. Gordon Pamplin said she had not heard the reports of abuse of sick leave first hand but said taxpayers needed to know what the true picture was.

She said: "If somebody is not pulling their weight in a team, then clearly it affects everybody.

"Before you can make an intelligent assessment it makes sense to have the statistics released to determine if there is a problem and where the problem lies and then do what's necessary to correct it.

"We are accountable for the public purse so if anybody is abusing it then clearly they need to be held accountable."