Thames Valley Police PC accused of sex with colleague on duty

The hearing into the former police officer's conduct is due to finish on Thursday

A former probationary police officer had sex with a colleague while on duty and used the force's IT system to view files inappropriately, a panel heard.

The ex-Thames Valley Police (TVP) officer, who worked in Berkshire, denies gross misconduct.

His colleague, referred to as E, said they had sex after a shift together in March 2021, but not during work time in June of that year as alleged.

A hearing into the former officer's conduct is due to finish on Thursday.

In a statement, the former officer, referred to as PC X, denied the sexual activity in June 2021 "in its entirety".

E, who is still a serving police officer, said they had sex once but that sexually explicit text messages from June did not show they had it again.

"There was inappropriate exchange of messages. The nature of our messages is that we have a laugh, we have a lot of fun together, we mess around," she said.

"We have sent messages that to our humour were funny and banter but being viewed by outside people they are kind of inappropriate."

Edward Barham, for TVP, said PC X fostered another inappropriate relationship with another woman he met while on duty.

Mr Barham said they had exchanged hundreds of "flirtatious" text messages through PC X's work mobile phone in March 2021 that exceeded professional boundaries.

PC X is also accused of searching for the woman on the police force's record system and then continuing their text message conversation.

The volume of their text message exchange - but not its content - was initially flagged up by TVP's counter-corruption unit.

The former officer denies that his conduct was wrong and said he had been "extremely keen" to provide a good service to the public.