Officer to face hearing over rape claims

A Metropolitan Police officer accused of raping two female colleagues faces a misconduct hearing three years after the alleged offences.

The unnamed officer was not charged or suspended and continued working for Britain’s largest police force in a reduced capacity, according to an investigation by the BBC with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Last year, the government-run Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) awarded both women significant sums of money after concluding police evidence suggested each had been subject to sexual and physical abuse.

The off-duty alleged offences were reported to Essex Police in 2017, and it said it carried out a lengthy inquiry but acknowledged there were “areas for improvement in the management of these investigations”.

The force added it was told there was “no realistic prospect of charge” after passing its file to the Crown Prosecution Service in 2019. An Essex Police statement said: “As a result, the suspect for both investigations was told he would face no further action.

“In this case, there was no immediate safeguarding concern due to the non-recent nature of the allegations and the lack of contact between suspect and victims.”

But one of the women said it was a “really bad investigation” with poor evidencegathering, and she claimed Essex Police “didn’t even finish taking all my allegations”.

Scotland Yard said its professional standards body “determined in February 2021 that the officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct”.