More police abuse cases will emerge, Wiltshire chief says

More cases of police officers abusing their powers will emerge, Wiltshire's outgoing chief constable says.

Kier Pritchard, who retires this month, said he was "sickened" and "kept awake at night" by high-profile examples that have already been uncovered.

Ex-officer David Carrick was jailed on Tuesday for dozens of sexual offences and in 2021 Met officer Wayne Couzens was jailed for Sarah Everard's murder.

Mr Pritchard hopes improved vetting procedures will root out wrongdoing.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wiltshire, he said: "As a chief I am absolutely sickened to the core by the very high profile examples that have been provided of criminals in uniform utterly abusing their position.

"It is the one thing that does keep me awake at night."

"Every single example chips away again at the trust and confidence [in the police], which I think is lower than I have ever seen in 30 years and I genuinely worry about the long term implications of that," he continued.

"But the reality is that we need to go further and there are more examples that will surface across the country and we are going through line by line, but please have some patience because there is going to be more to surface as we rid the service across the UK of behaviour such as this."

All police forces are now checking their officers against national policing databases to see if any criminals have ended up becoming officers.

Mr Pritchard, whose force was placed into special measures in 2022, said there also needs to be a change in culture both within the police force and so that victims have more confidence to report crimes.

"I think there is a massive opportunity right now," he said.

"We across the country, and very much here in Wiltshire, are focusing on violence against women and girls as one of our key priorities.

"It is going to take time, it is cultural, but some of that is about training, some of that is making sure that the priorities are clear, but also it is about making sure that we hold people to account for doing what we expect them to do."

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