Essex Police officer sent 'flirty' emails to crash victims

A police officer abused his position to kiss four women and flirted with a 16-year-old crash victim, a misconduct hearing has been told.

Marc Louis faces allegations that his actions between 2012 and 2017 discredited Essex Police force.

The former traffic officer resigned on Friday and did not attend proceedings earlier at Chelmsford Civic Centre.

He denies kissing two of the women and is also accused of getting into a woman's car uninvited.

Mr Louis, who was based at Stanway Roads Policing Unit, is accused of abusing his position as a police officer to engage in inappropriate relationships with vulnerable women that he met through his work.

They were either the victims of crime or offenders, and he engaged them in "flirtatious" and "unprofessional" relationships, according to James Berry, acting for Essex Police.

Snogging episode

Mr Berry said the father of a 16-year-old crash victim became concerned by the tone the officer had used to address his daughter in an email.

In the message, Mr Louis referred to an appointment to take her official statement as a "date".

"Sorry again for being nearly as rubbish as you with keeping our dates... appointments," Mr Louis wrote.

In 2015 he is alleged to have attempted to kiss a woman after visiting her at home.

When he later saw her driving away from a Tesco car park in Braintree, he ran after her and catching up with her at traffic lights, got in the car without permission, saying their meeting "was fate", the hearing was told.

The woman told him to get out.

On another occasion, a neighbour reported seeing Mr Louis "snogging" a woman whose statement he had taken about a crash she had been involved in, in which she was injured.

'Thinking of me eh?'

He is alleged to have visited this woman 12 to 15 times over a four week period and to have pulled her car over twice for personal reasons, while in a police vehicle.

She is said to have thrown a glass of wine at Mr Louis after spotting his wedding ring.

Mr Louis denies the relationship.

Mr Berry said the PC had exchanged flirty emails with a witness in a case he was involved in, after she spotted him on the television programme Police Interceptors.

When she told him she had seen him on TV Mr Louis responded: "Sitting in your bedroom thinking of me eh...?! Can't be healthy. They do say think of the devil and he shall appear :) x"

The hearing continues.