Officer sacked over explicit pictures of colleague

The consensual, explicit pictures were taken in the basement of Leamington police station

A police officer has been sacked after taking consensual explicit pictures of a female officer in a police station.

The male officer from Warwickshire Police, who can only be referred to as PC Z, took the intimate pictures of the woman while she was on duty at Leamington police station, a misconduct hearing was informed.

PC Z told the panel the pictures, taken in the station's basement, were "spontaneous" and the pair had originally arranged to meet for "coffee and cake".

The misconduct panel found him guilty of gross misconduct and concluded his actions fell "significantly short" of the standard expected of him.

Public confidence in the police service would be seriously undermined by his behaviour, the panel added.

PC Z was suspended from the force in February 2020 on full pay.

A two-day hearing at Stratford police station heard that PC Z had used the police database on two separate occasions to find out about men with whom the woman - PC A - had been in sexual relationships.

The hearing took place at Stratford police station on Thursday and Friday

During cross examination by barrister Barney Branston, PC Z said he had accessed the systems for "safeguarding reasons".

Mr Branston said the officer had been a "loving fool", losing track of the "blindingly obvious fact" that his actions were wrong.

A personal phone and police phone, which belonged to PC Z, were seized during the misconduct investigation.

Both were found to have deleted explicit and intimate images of PC A, some of which were taken while she was on duty.

The panel ruled that the allegations of misconduct were proven.

In a statement, Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe said when "serious misconduct" had occurred those responsible should be "swiftly removed from the force".

He added: "I am therefore concerned about cases like this one which take multiple years to resolve.

"I will be raising my concerns over both this case and the wider issues of delays in the misconduct process with the [force's] chief constable and the IOPC," Mr Seccombe said.

PC Z was dismissed without notice.