A police officer romped with a colleague while on duty – having told the woman to turn off her CCTV-enabled door bell, a misconduct hearing was told.

The officer, whose identity has been kept secret by misconduct panel chair Ogheneruona Iguyovwe, denied the allegation he had sex at the female colleague’s house on a work from home day last summer.

And he claimed that there was nothing untoward about him swapping scores of messages on his work phone with ‘person A’, the mum of a missing girl he first met on duty and who told him she needed ‘a little bottle of you to get out when there are problems LOL’. The texts were deleted from his phone, it was said.

The former probationer constable, given the moniker ‘PC X’, accepted accessing the police computer system ‘Niche’ to access information about the mum, but said it was for a legitimate policing purpose.

Yesterday, the misconduct panel heard that Mr X resigned from Thames Valley Police in May.

The force, which has charged him with three breaches of professional standards of behaviour, alleged the ex-officer was guilty of gross misconduct that would have resulted in him being sacked had he not resigned from the constabulary.

The officer did not give evidence on Wednesday. However, in a formal reply to the allegations read by union representative Nigel Snell, Mr X said he was a ‘very new and inexperienced officer’ who had joined Thames Valley Police around 14 months earlier and was ‘exceptionally keen to do well’.

Mr X said he understood the importance of ‘victim contact’ and remaining in regular contact with people. He said he was effectively the officer in charge of ‘person A’s’ case and had remained ‘professional in everything I said’.

‘Person A’ had been spoken to by a detective in the counter-corruption unit. She described her message exchange with Mr X as ‘friendly banter’ and said the former officer was ‘professional and helpful’.

A police officer who had been crewed with Mr X remembered being concerned about the texting and had raised it with him twice, the panel heard.

The former officer denied ‘in its entirety’ the allegation he had sex with a female colleague while on duty on June 29 last year, having exchanged flirtatious messages with her. He accepted going to her house to complete ‘online training’ but said he remained deployable. The panel heard that the pair had allegedly previously had sex in March, while off duty.

Mr X accepted asking the colleague to turn off her CCTV-enabled Ring doorbell before he arrived on June 29 – but suggested that was because he did not want to ‘inadvertently’ cause problems with the woman’s ex-partner. Ms ‘E’ – the colleague – told the panel her ex had no access to the doorbell, but she had turned it off to avoid causing problems.

Edward Barham, representing Thames Valley Police, asked the panel to find the allegations proved.

“The volune of the messages [with person A] in inappropriate per se on any objective level. Furthermore, the content of many of those messages is inappropriate on the basis it serves no policing purpose,” he said.

Pointing to the fact messages had been deleted from Mr X’s work phone, Mr Barham said: “That level of forethought in attempting to cover his tracks, demonstrates knowledge the relationship or correspondence was inappropriate.” The officer had 'no memory' of deleting the messages, it was said.

The Niche system had been accessed ‘some five days after’ a second visit to ‘person A’s’ home. It was ‘not required’ for the officer to log onto the system, Mr Barham added.

Turning to the sex-on-duty allegation, Mr Barham said the text message exchange between him and ‘E’ ‘demonstrates there was an intention to have sexual activity on June 29’.

Rubbishing the suggestion that Mr X had been working in the morning, he noted that the former officer did not start to use the police computer system Niche until after 1pm.

The misconduct panel is expected to deliver its verdict this morning. The case continues.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward