Abuse of power for sexual purpose - West Midlands Police, April 2018
We carried out four separate investigations which led to a West Midlands Police (WMP) police constable (PC) and an ex-PC each being charged with two counts of misconduct in public office, involving allegations of abuse of authority for sexual gain.
In July 2023, they were 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 court heard that one of the charges against the ex-PC and another against a PC related to the same woman. Evidence gathered by us, indicated that the PC 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 the now former PC , who had gone to her home single crewed to deal with alleged domestic abuse. We established that the woman expected the other PC 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 the PC 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 he 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 the ex-PC, had initiated oral sex while attending a domestic abuse incident at her partner’s home in 2013.
The trial was told that after the ex-PC 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.
It was of particular concern that the disclosures made to the other PC, 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; both officers were interviewed under criminal caution; and we carried out extensive analysis of their phones and communications data.
We did not identify any organisational learning.