Conduct of an officer in relation to his contact with a victim of crime – Devon and Cornwall Police, February 2022

In August 2021, a woman reported an assault to Devon and Cornwall Police and a crime report was recorded. The officer assigned the case met with the woman at her home to obtain her consent to a Community Resolution disposal for the case.

In February 2022 a routine audit of the officer’s work phone revealed that there has been a total of 540 communications between him and the woman during only a period of only 22 days.

Many the communications appeared to have no policing purpose and the extent of this communication is not reflected in the entries made by the officer in the crime report.

This matter was referred to us in February 2022 and the officer was served with a Regulation 17 Notice. He was also informed that he was under criminal investigation for potential offences of corruption and Misconduct in Public Office.

Both his police and personal mobile phones were seized and were sent for analysis.

Analysis of the phones subsequently showed that the messages, having been deleted were only recoverable in partial form. Where the full message had not been recoverable, it was sometimes difficult to understand the full context of some of the exchanges.

The recoverable parts of 354 messages found on his work phone indicated that a significant number of messages had been of a personal nature.

We specifically investigated:
- the level and nature of the contact between the officer and woman
- whether the actions and decisions of the officer were in accordance with local and national policy and guidance, and his training
- the validity of the crime report entry recorded by the officer.

During the investigation, we examined his police issued and personal mobile phones and analysed the data extracted. We interviewed the police officer, and contacted the individual whom he had been contacting and exchanging messages.

Our investigation concluded in August 2022 but we waited for all proceedings to conclude before publishing our findings.

We concluded the officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct.

A gross misconduct hearing was held for the officer in April 2023. Members of the panel found that he had breached the standards appropriate to the conduct of a police officer in respect of 'Honesty and Integrity', 'Duties and Responsibilities', 'Authority, Respect and Courtesy' and 'Discreditable Conduct'.  Gross misconduct was proven for separate allegations relating to the officer lying about sickness.

The panel found that his actions had amounted to misconduct in respect of allegations of inappropriate contact with a victim of crime.

He was dismissed without notice and added to the College of Policing barred list to prevent future employment with any police service.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents. In this case, the investigation has not identified any learning.