Police officer ‘made secret tape of sex with women’
Report claims the officer shared the video online with colleagues
AFIREARMS officer secretly filmed himself having sex with two women before sharing the footage online with his colleagues, it has been reported.
The West Midlands Police officer is under criminal investigation for allegedly filming the encounters at a Christmas party without the women’s knowledge, before sending the videos to members of his team by social media.
Channel 4 News claimed ten West Midlands Police officers and staff members shared offensive and derogatory material on social media.
West Midlands Police confirmed an officer in his 20s has been arrested “in connection with an off-duty incident” in December 2022. He remains in custody.
The force also said ten officers were being investigated for “alleged inappropriate and discriminatory communication on social media”. They have been taken off frontline duties.
West Midland Police Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara said: “We know trust in policing has been deeply damaged in recent years, and can only be rebuilt by the public seeing the results of the action we’re taking.
“All police chiefs have been strengthening their misconduct and processes, addressing cultural problems and increasing action against violent men over the past two years.
“Every day the majority of our officers and staff work tirelessly to protect the public and perform their duties with the utmost professionalism and they will be disgusted at the behaviour of a small minority of individuals who fall below these standards and betray everything they stand for.
“There is no place in policing for misogynistic, discriminatory or disrespectful behaviour and we are working hard to ensure predatory individuals are not only rooted out of the force, but that vetting and standards are strengthened to ensure they cannot join the police in the first place.”
Former victims commissioner for England and Wales Dame Vera Baird said the officers should be suspended immediately while investigations continue. She added it is “no longer at all appropriate” that police are able to carry out their own vetting.
“It seems to me it is no longer at all appropriate that the police should carry out their own vetting. It should be done, in my view, with the intervention of some outside people,” she said.
Birmingham Yardley Labour MP Jess Phillips, shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, said: “What is the standard for vetting, disciplinary, suspension in these instances?
“For too long in West Midlands Police, as well as in pretty much every police force across the country, we have seen cases where officers accused either through the criminal process or the employment processes of the police have been put on to light duties, for example. It’s just not appropriate.”