Sexual Misconduct (172A/23)
Request
I would like to know, since the start of 2018 to now:
1) The total number of serving WMP officers who have been the subject of allegations of sexual offences (please specify the total for each offence, such as rape, sexual assault, grooming etc, and specify if an officer has faced more than one allegation).
2) The same question for police staff
3) The outcome of these cases. Were officers/staff charged and convicted or cleared? Were they dismissed from the force or allowed to keep their jobs?
Response
Please find attached our response.
In addition to the attached response, please be advised that we want our officers to uphold the highest of standards so the public has the utmost confidence in them.
Sexual harassment and abuse are simply unacceptable but when it is done by a police officer – who holds a position of power and someone the public should trust – it must be rooted out and eliminated.
We must do everything we can to maintain public confidence and trust in policing. This will provide reassurance to the public that we mean it when we say we’ll do all we can to preserve and rebuild trust.
This data should be interpreted with caution. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete, however, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.