Serving West Midlands PC and former officer found guilty of misconduct in public office

Two West Midlands Police constables, one former and one still serving, were today (Monday 17 July) both found guilty of misconduct in public office for forming inappropriate sexual relationships or engaging in sexual activity with women they met while on duty.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) carried out four separate investigations which led to Police Constable (PC) Anthony Ritchie, aged 46, and former PC Steven Darren Walters, aged 55, each being charged with two counts of misconduct in public office, involving allegations of abuse of authority for sexual gain.

At the end of a 12-day trial a jury at Birmingham Crown Court found them guilty of all charges and the judge adjourned the case for sentencing on 21 September. Both men were warned that they should expect custodial sentences.

The court heard that one of the charges against ex-PC Walters and another against PC Ritchie related to the same woman. Evidence gathered by the IOPC indicated that PC Ritchie began an inappropriate sexual relationship with the woman in 2014 after he responded to a reported domestic violence incident. Our inquiries indicated he sent her messages from his personal phone and that they had sex after he arrested her partner, who was then remanded in custody.

During their relationship she disclosed to him that the previous year (2013) she had been pressured into oral sex by then PC Walters, who had gone to her home single crewed to deal with alleged domestic abuse. We established that the woman expected PC Ritchie to act on her allegations, which did not happen.

The IOPC investigations into both officers began after the woman made disclosures to other police officers who attended her home in April 2018 for an unrelated incident.

In May 2021 another woman came forward to say that she had been in a sexual relationship with PC Ritchie in 2014 after he asked for a date, having gone to her home in an attempt to arrest her son. She alleged they had sex while he was on duty and that PC Ritchie persuaded her to lie to a superior officer about how they had met, after a complaint was made by her son to the police about the nature of the officer’s relationship with his mother.

The IOPC made a further referral to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after investigating complaints made in November 2021 by a third woman who alleged that an officer, later identified as ex-PC Walters, had initiated oral sex while attending a domestic abuse incident at her partner’s home in 2013.

IOPC Regional Director Derrick Campbell said: “Abuse of power for sexual gain is a breach of the public’s trust, which seriously undermines confidence in the police service and discredits the profession. The actions of PC Ritchie and ex-PC Walters were quite rightly described as predatory during the trial and an aggravating feature is that they consistently targeted women who were in vulnerable situations and looking to the police for help.  

“Both officers have behaved disgracefully and in PC Ritchie’s case our investigations established that while he was having a relationship with two women at the same time after meeting them through work, he was also going through a disciplinary procedure for inappropriate text messages sent to another woman he met while on duty.”

The trial was told that after ex-PC Walters was jailed for sexually assaulting two different women in 2015 whilst on duty, he was dismissed by West Midlands Police in 2016. That followed an investigation by the then IPCC.

Mr Campbell said it was of particular concern that the disclosures made to PC Ritchie, which were not followed up, predated those offences.

The first of the IOPC’s current investigations into the officers began in April 2018 and the final one was completed in January last year (2022). During our inquiries we carried out achieving best evidence interviews with the complainants; PC Ritchie and ex-PC Walters were interviewed under criminal caution; and we carried out extensive analysis of their phones and communications data.