Officer shared rape victim's photo - hearing

A police officer responsible for safeguarding made disparaging comments about a rape complainant's account of what had happened to her and shared her image online, a misconduct hearing has been told.

Simon Sewell worked as a detective constable in Kirklees at the time of the offences in March 2023, but had since resigned from West Yorkshire Police, the panel heard.

A gross misconduct hearing concluded he would have been sacked had he not already resigned from the force after admitting a total of 12 breaches of police conduct.

The disciplinary panel accepted he had been in a "controlling and coercive relationship" at the time, but said it was "limited in its impact" on his actions.

The hearing, held earlier at West Yorkshire Police's headquarters in Wakefield, was told that when Mr Sewell shared the image of the rape complainant with his then girlfriend, he suggested the woman had been lying.

Mr Sewell, who did not attend the disciplinary hearing, had also sent his former partner a photo of a bloodied cot from the scene of an attempted murder and a picture of a man in custody on two other occasions, the hearing was told.

Panel members heard that Mr Sewell had previously claimed he had been acting under duress while in a "controlling and coercive relationship" which had left him under pressure to provide justification for his whereabouts and why he may have needed to work later.

However, Simon Mallett, representing West Yorkshire Police, said while there had been some "coercion and control" in Mr Sewell's relationship, it had "minimal causal effect on the officer's behaviour and provides no credible explanation" for his actions.

"As a safeguarding officer, he knows about the vulnerability of a rape victim," Mr Mallett said to the panel.

The hearing was told Mr Sewell also shared explicit photos of his then girlfriend on social media without her knowledge or consent.

After she found out, he told her: "I'm not saying it's right, but what I did wasn't illegal."

The pictures were shared in April 2021, two years before the introduction of the Online Safety Act which outlawed such actions.

Jayne Salt, the independent legally qualified chair of the misconduct hearing, said at the time Mr Sewell had shared the photos there had been "widespread discussion in the media that the officer was aware of about the criminalising of such conduct".

Mr Sewell had also admitted making unauthorised searches on police databases, which he claimed had been done under pressure from his former partner - despite some of them taking place after their relationship had ended.

The disciplinary panel concluded the allegations against Mr Sewell, who his barrister said had since found a new job, had been "proven in their entirety".

Ms Salt said: "We recognise there was some stress arising from an element of control and coercion, albeit we had found that would have been limited in its impact in regards to the conduct."

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