Woman pursues civil claim against police officer after sex act
08 Mar 2010
A woman who claims a police officer took advantage of her after he
attended her property because of a domestic disturbance is now
pursuing a civil claim against him.
PC James Formby, 31, and a colleague responded to a disturbance in
Bromley in September 2009 and a man was arrested.
The other officer went with the man who had been taken for
questioning, but PC Formby stayed with his girlfriend, who cannot
be named.
She had been drinking and PC Formby began to flirt with her, making
suggestive comments about her clothing, BBC News reports.
They went into the woman's bedroom and engaged in a sex act which
was only discovered when the woman rang the police station to ask
how her boyfriend was.
A text message sent from PC Formby's phone corroborated her
allegations and the officer was suspended from the force.
He has now been given a 20-week suspended sentence and Judge
Nicholas Loraine-Smith said he will never serve with the police
again after committing the act with the "vulnerable" woman.
"Your duty as a police officer was to treat her professionally," he
commented.
However, the victim's legal representative Sasha Barton, of Hodge
Jones & Allen Solicitors LLP, said she is disappointed with the
"lenient" sentence.
"We are now representing her in a civil claim against the police
and considering other avenues of redress against the individual
officer concerned," she added.
In September 2009, the Independent Police Complaints Commission
revealed that complaints against the police had risen by eight per
cent in 2008 compared with the previous year.
Allegations of sexual assault by the police increased by 30 per
cent, while one in four related to a neglect of duty.
