Carry on, constable
Officer who performed sex acts on sergeant in police station keeps job
A FEMALE police constable has kept her job after she admitted performing sex acts on her sergeant at their police station.
PC Jemma Dicks, 28, was said to have brought the reputation of the police service into disrepute after she and Adam Reed, 40, shared at least three trysts at Cardiff Central police station.
Yesterday a misconduct hearing was told that although her actions had damaged the police service’s reputation, she had not sought to cover up the episodes and had expressed ‘genuine remorse’.
It also heard that ‘predatory’ Mr Reed would have been dismissed without notice from South Wales Police for ‘orchestrating’ the encounters if he had not already quit after allegations were made. As a result his name will be placed on the policing barred list. Panel chairman Emma Boothroyd said PC Dicks did not deliberately set out to have sex at work and while on duty, and was experiencing ‘very difficult family circumstances’ at the time following the death of her father.
PC Dicks broke down after receiving the decision. The written warning will last for 18 months and any misconduct within that time could lead to her dismissal.
The hearing was previously told that married father-of-two Mr Reed had ‘manipulated’ PC Dicks during their ten-month affair, as she had looked up to him as a replacement for her father.
PC Dicks’s decision to perform sex acts on Mr Reed between November 2017 and August 2018
– including once while she was on duty – was a ‘serious breach of professional behaviour’.
Three separate allegations facing Mr Reed, who left the force in January 2019, were also found proven, amounting to gross misconduct.
He accepted that he had covertly taken photos of a female colleague, had one encounter with PC Dicks at the station and had sex with a PCSO while off duty.