Allegations that officers abused their position for sexual purpose and to obtain intelligence - Gloucestershire Constabulary, April 2020

On 6 April 2020, an incident log was created regarding a complaint by a vulnerable woman. She reported that someone known to her and suspected to be involved in drug dealing, had threatened to cause serious harm. This person had allegedly been utilising her home as a base for drug trafficking, a crime known as ‘cuckooing.’ During a call back the same day, the woman complained about the conduct of the attending officers.

It was alleged by the woman that the officers abused their positions for sexual purposes and to obtain intelligence from the victim as an unofficial informant. It was further alleged that they tried to get them to destroy evidence to cover their activity.

The evidence obtained by our investigation indicated that two Gloucestershire police officers had potentially abused their positions in their interactions with a vulnerable victim of crime.

During our investigation, we interviewed the officers and examined their mobile phones. We obtained accounts from several witnesses, including the injured party.
Our investigation concluded in March 2021. We waited for all associated proceedings to be complete before publishing our findings.
We concluded there was a case to answer for misconduct in relation to both police officers abusing their position to utilise the complainant as an unofficial informant, taking advantage of her vulnerabilities and placing her at risk. One officer also had a case to answer for misconduct in relation to utilising a second woman as an unofficial informant. We shared our findings with Gloucestershire Constabulary.

We determined that the officers did not have a case to answer for the other allegations.

Gloucestershire Constabulary put forward their view in February 2022, that disciplinary proceedings should not be brought in this case and that the most constructive outcome, both in the public interest and in the interests of the officers, would be for the misconduct to be addressed through the reflective practice review process.

We considered the points raised by the force and agreed that engagement with the reflective practice review process would benefit both officers, the force and the public interest. We therefore accepted that both officers would engage with reflective practice.

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.