Vref130
That is a whole new bag of worms you are opening. If someone is in uniform and doing anything that could be construed as being innapropriate behaviour then their company may be within their rights to discipline them through internal channels - along the lines of conduct unbecoming or bringing the company into disrepute.
In this case there are very few of us who know the real facts - we are all just speculating which is a shame (I would not like it to be about me), but it is human nature.
If he is guilty of reporting for duty whilst under the influence (which is I think the whole argument, regardless of the actual time he was going to fly) then he should have the book thrown at him. I do not think that there is an aviation professional in here that thinks otherwise.
If however he is innocent (and I sincerely hope for his sake that he is), then he will be exonerated and I hope that anyone here who has doubted him without knowledge of the facts is man enough to apologise through the forum.
What is worth bearing in mind is (in my belief) that although he was the relief pilot, he was still reporting for duty, regardless of how many hours it would be before he was going to assume PF duty.
As the relief pilot, I am sure that if anything happened to the PF or PNF before it had been planned that he would take over, then he would have stepped into their shoes. That in itself in my eyes makes any argument saying he was 'not due to fly for another x amount of hours' etc a moot point.
Meanwhile, I hope that the pilot involved is managing to carry on his day to day life - this has been hanging over him for some time -for someone who is a professional upstanding citizen, it must be hell.
As for calling the Police Officers 'Chimps' etc and giving them a hard time, I think we should again wait for the facts about how this came about. I firmly believe that there are a few coppers out there who are over zealous and that quite a few of them get a kick out of a feeling of power; however, they are far outweighed by many good ordinary Police.