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An assistant chief constable could face the sack after allegedly passing interview questions to a colleague ahead of a promotion interview.

Naveed Malik, who joined Cambridgeshire Police in 2016, is accused of breaching professional standards.

He allegedly instructed a staff member to give a candidate pointers about questions which would be asked as part of a chief inspector promotion process.

ACC Malik faces a gross misconduct hearing on 25 September.

The alleged incident relates to a Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire tri-force chief inspector promotion process which took place in February, as the .

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Mr Malik, who was chairing the interview panel, "had provided informal mentoring to Police Officer A" [a candidate] ahead of the process, the misconduct document released by the force, states.

He later told another colleague - referred to as "Police Staff Member B" - the four areas that Officer A would be questioned on, and informed him to call the candidate and pass on that information.

The staff member called the candidate and said words to the effect that: "Nav has just asked me to give you the topics," the document says.

Officer A, the candidate, then said: "Go back and tell [ACC Malik] that I didn't want to listen." The officer indicated they wanted to be promoted on their own merit.

The promotion process was halted, but Mr Malik did not report his own conduct, the document states.

His conduct, it says, was "in breach of the standard of honesty and integrity", likely to bring discredit to the police service and amounts to gross misconduct.

Before taking on the role of ACC with the Cambridgeshire force, Mr Malik was a temporary assistant chief constable with Warwickshire Police, the force he joined at the age of 18.