Gwent Police officer dismissed after gross misconduct found proven

A Gwent Police officer has been dismissed after gross misconduct was proven at a police disciplinary hearing, following an IOPC directed investigation.

PC Robert Davies was found to have breached police professional standards after engaging in inappropriate and unprofessional text message conversations with three female members of the public between January and May 2020.

Evidence gathered during our investigation, which was carried out by detectives from Gwent Police Professional Standards Department and presented at the hearing, indicated that PC Davies had met the three women during the course of his duties.

He was found to have then communicated with the women via text messages and phone calls at various times of the day and night including when he was both on and off duty. Over the four month period, 298 text messages were exchanged between PC Davies and one of the women, 277 with a second, and 161 with the third.

Messages he sent included:

“I was thinking of you being naughty with me”, “could do with a good night out”, “gorgeous in every way”, “think about you a lot”.

IOPC Director of Major Investigations, Steve Noonan said:

“The messages PC Davies sent to these women were clearly both overfamiliar and excessive. Two of the women were considered to be vulnerable. He breached his position of trust by engaging in unprofessional behaviour and his actions had the potential to undermine confidence in policing. The evidence from the investigation has been presented to a police disciplinary panel which has decided an outcome of dismissal.”

PC Davies was found to have breached the police professional standards of behaviour including integrity, respect and authority, and discreditable conduct. The panel deemed the messages to be of a sexual nature.

The investigation followed a referral from Gwent Police in May 2020. At the end of the investigation in December 2020 we found that PC Davies had a case to answer for gross misconduct. A referral was made to the Crown Prosecution Service who decided not to bring any criminal charge.

PC Davies will now be added to the police barred list.