PC who had sex with domestic abuse victim jailed

A former police officer who had sex with a vulnerable domestic abuse victim whose complaints he had been tasked with investigating has been jailed.

Declan Middleton had recently joined West Yorkshire Police after completing his training when he first had contact with the woman, during the first Covid lockdown.

Two months later he sent explicit WhatsApp messages to another woman, who had approached the police because she was being sent malicious messages online by an unknown party.

Middleton, 33, who was found guilty of two counts of misconduct in public office following a trial last month, was told by the judge he had committed a "grotesque and gross breach of trust".

Leeds Crown Court was told Middleton, of Lark Field Terrace in Keighley, had been sent to the home of the first woman in May 2020 to obtain a statement from her about an alleged assault against her.

It was said that at the time, the woman had bruising to her face and had recently had her children taken into care.

During the course of the meeting, the court was told Middleton asked to be shown to the toilet, at which point he grabbed her bottom from behind while he walked behind her up the stairs.

He then left her his personal phone number and flirtatious and explicit messages were exchanged between them over the course of the following days.

He then returned to the property around a week after first meeting her and had consensual sex with her, the prosecution said.

Middleton had denied having sex with the woman and claimed during his trial that she had lied, it was said.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she felt she had been treated like "an unpaid prostitute".

The second woman was first visited by Middleton in July 2020, when he was instructed to investigate her claims she was being sent "nuisance" anonymous messages online.

The woman, who had also previously been subjected to domestic abuse, was left with Middleton's number and the pair exchanged more than 200 WhatsApp messages, most of them flirtatious, within a fortnight.

The court heard communication between the pair ceased when it became clear Middleton did not want a long-term relationship with the victim, it was said.

In her victim impact statement, the second woman said the exchange had "damaged her trust in the police".

Middleton resigned from the force after the allegations against him progressed to a tribunal.

He was already barred from serving as a police officer before criminal proceedings against him had concluded.

Mitigating for him, Nicholas Worsley said Middleton's family would financially struggle while he was behind bars and that he was deemed to be at "low risk" of reoffending.

Sentencing him to two years in prison, Judge Simon Batiste said: "You saw these women as an opportunity to engage in what you saw as easy sex.

"With an attitude of this sort, you are wholly unsuitable to be a police officer.

"Offences of this type damage trust in the police as a whole."

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