Two West Midlands police officers who had inappropriate sexual relationships with domestic abuse survivors have been found guilty of misconduct in public office.
PC Anthony Ritchie, 46, and former officer Steven Walters, 55, were each found guilty of two counts of misconduct in public office at Birmingham crown court, with one count involving the same victim of domestic abuse.
Ritchie began an inappropriate sexual relationship with the woman in 2014 after he responded to a reported domestic violence incident. During this relationship, the woman told Ritchie that she had been pressured into oral sex by Walters the previous year after he had gone to her home on his own to deal with another alleged domestic abuse incident.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct found that the woman expected Ritchie to act on her allegations but this did not happen.
The IOPC’s investigation into the officers began after the woman reported Ritchie and Walters to different police officers attending her home for an unrelated incident in April 2018.
In May 2021, another woman came forward to say she had been in a sexual relationship with Ritchie in 2014 after he asked for a date, having gone to her home in an attempt to arrest her son.
She said they had sex while he was on duty and that Ritchie persuaded her to lie to a superior officer about how they had met, after her son made a complaint to the police about the nature of the officer’s relationship with his mother.
In November 2021, a third woman came forward to allege that Walters had initiated oral sex with her while attending a domestic abuse incident at her partner’s home in 2013.
Walters has previously served a jail term for sexually assaulting two different women in 2015 while on duty. He was dismissed by West Midlands police in 2016. The earlier offences that he has now been found guilty of did not come to light at the time.
The IOPC regional director for the Midlands, Derrick Campbell, said: “Abuse of power for sexual gain is a breach of the public’s trust, which seriously undermines confidence in the police service and discredits the profession. The actions of PC Ritchie and ex-PC Walters were quite rightly described as predatory during the trial and an aggravating feature is that they consistently targeted women who were in vulnerable situations and looking to the police for help.”
The judge adjourned the case for sentencing on 21 September. Both men were told they should expect custodial sentences.
• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. International helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
