A former police constable who hugged two women he had contact with while on duty and sent them inappropriate messages on social media has been jailed for 15 months.
Oliver Dines was sentenced at Worcester Crown Court, sitting at Redditch Justice Centre, on Wednesday, after pleading guilty at a previous hearing to an offence of improper exercise of police powers.
Prosecutors asked for two sexual assault charges, relating to the officer’s contact with the two women, to be ordered to lie on the court file, after a trial on the charges was halted in September last year.
Former West Mercia Police officer Dines denied committing the sexual assault offences around a month apart whilst on duty in Herefordshire in 2020.
The 33-year-old, of Tupsley, Hereford, was alleged to have asked one of the women if she was single and made comments about what she was wearing, and to have engaged in “similar conduct” with a second woman after taking a statement from her.
The women, who cannot be named, were not required to give evidence to the earlier trial before it was abandoned.
Passing sentence, Judge Jonathan Salmon told Dines that the evidence showed one of the women had been asked to send nude photographs of herself, which she refused to do.
The judge told Dines: “The public rightly have an expectation that police officers will act with the highest integrity and probity.
“This is a case where your actions in respect of each of these individuals was deliberate. It is clear that you knew you were crossing professional boundaries.”
The offence, which was investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), had also created a wider harm “to the community and the police force” by undermining public confidence, the judge said.
Commenting after the sentencing, IOPC director Derrick Campbell: “Part of a police officer’s role is to protect members of the public who are in vulnerable situations, not to make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe.
“This was a clear case of abuse of power by the officer, for his own gratification.
“Pc Dines’ behaviour has the potential to seriously undermine public confidence in policing and he has now, rightly, been held accountable for his actions.”