While there’s a watchdog for serious cases of police misconduct, it turns out that for everyday cock-ups officers have their own secret system of punishment: the cake fine.

The payment of cakes to colleagues for incompetence on duty has become such an in-joke in the force that it has its own mock legislation — known as the Cake Offences Act 2018 — with strict rules matching the severity of offence with the appropriate penalty.

An officer uttering “the Q word” (quiet) while on shift invokes an age-old superstition that mayhem will ensue and is deemed worthy of punishment.

Fines have resulted from spraying a colleague in the face with incapacitant spray, dropping the keys to a squad car in a storm drain and falling through