Woman who reported predatory officer gets apology | UK News

A woman who was groomed by a predatory police officer has received an apology from the Metropolitan Police after the force blamed her and spread false information about her mental health instead of investigating him.

Lorraine – not her real name – accused the Met of trying to discredit her over her complaints against PC Phil Hunter, whom she met when he made a welfare visit to her home in 2017.

In a letter seen by the , Acting Det Ch Supt Neil Smithson, who leads the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS), apologised for “a series of failings” over a seven-year period.

PC Hunter, who is no longer a police officer, was found guilty of gross misconduct at a disciplinary panel in August.

In a statement issued to the , Det Supt Smithson said he had corresponded with Lorraine on a number of occasions. “I do not underestimate the effect that this matter has had on this victim… I want to be clear, it is unacceptable for any officer to abuse their position of trust and I would like to acknowledge and apologise for the distress this has caused.”

PC Hunter was described as a “sexual predator who used his position to take advantage of vulnerable women”.

The letter the has seen states that “victim-blaming has occurred towards you by members of the Metropolitan Police and this is not acceptable”.

Lorraine said she found the details “shocking”.

She said she had always suspected her complaints had not been investigated because the Met incorrectly believed she had poor mental health.

“I tried to report him over and over again and they completely ignored me and I now know why. To actually see it in black and white is just horrendous.”

The disciplinary panel heard that, over a period of two years, PC Hunter sent Lorraine inappropriate messages, and tried to isolate her from friends and family, as part of a “deliberate” and “predatory” plan to have a sexual relationship with her.

PC Hunter retired in 2019, while under investigation for a case involving another vulnerable woman he had also met during a welfare visit, and with whom he had started a sexual relationship.

He was found guilty of gross misconduct a year later for his behaviour towards her.

Despite the DPS being aware that PC Hunter had already targeted another victim in similar circumstances, Lorraine’s complaints were ignored.

The letter from the DPS admits her initial allegations were not recorded and were “not given the weight that they should have been”, and that it took her “numerous attempts over a period of 18 months” before officers investigated.

It says decisions may have been influenced by the belief that Lorraine was suffering from mental health issues, which it conceded “did not have basis in fact”.

The DPS’s letter said that inaccurate information had been recorded about Lorraine on police systems, which were not updated when she provided the force with new information.

Instead, the information was shared with others over the following seven years.

A senior officer told social services that he believed Lorraine had mental health issues, and tried to contact her GP without her consent.

The Met also incorrectly told external agencies that Lorraine had fabricated some allegations, and defamatory information about her was passed by a third party to her GP.

Lorraine said she was deeply concerned that the Met appeared to suggest it might decide not to investigate allegations against predatory officers on the basis that the alleged victim had a mental health problem.

“Surely predators are more drawn to vulnerable people with mental health issues than people that can stand up to them, so it makes no sense to me. Surely they would investigate that more, not less, had it been true?

“What about other women who’ve come forward who do have a mental health issue of some description and they’ve completely ignored them on that basis?”

The DPS has also apologised for using a statement that Lorraine provided about former PC Hunter as a supportive document in his first gross misconduct hearing, instead of treating it as evidence that she was a victim.

Lorraine believes this was because of a reference she had made explaining that PC Hunter had appeared to be “a nice guy” when he hugged her during the welfare check and told her she was “lovely”.

“The fact that I had said at the bottom [of the statement] that I thought he was very nice is irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant,” she told the .

Lorraine also told the she was left more vulnerable to PC Hunter’s behaviour because he had been able to discover information about her case from other police officers after leaving the force.

“He knew the Met were treating anything I said with contempt. I was terrified of him, absolutely terrified of him,” she said.

“He knew so much about me, from police station gossip: where I was, where I was going, who I was seeing. He knew everything about me.”

The letter from the DPS apologises if information about Lorraine was discussed between officers without a legitimate policing purpose.

Her experience was highlighted among the case studies in the damning review by Baroness Casey in March 2023, which said that Lorraine, referred to as “M”, had been “traumatised” by both PC Hunter and her treatment by the DPS.

The review found the Met was institutionally misogynist, and called for urgent reforms including to the misconduct system.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has previously highlighted the issue of the number of rogue officers being brought before the courts and disciplinary tribunals. He described his intent to deal with the problem as “the strongest doubling down on standards for 50 years”.

Officers have been redeployed from counter-terrorism and serious and organised crime to boost numbers at the DPS to focus on investigating complaints, according to the Met.

However, Lorraine – who said the process of trying to report PC Hunter had been worse than anything he had put her through – told the she was angry it had taken so long for the Met to admit to its failures and now feels the promises of reform are “hollow words”.

“You have a level of acceptance that there are bad people out there, but when the people that you should be able to trust turn out to be just as bad, where do you go with that?

“They have done nothing to help me or support me in any way. They’ve just made it really, really difficult for me throughout.”

She added: “They have learnt nothing since Baroness Casey’s review. They had ample opportunity just to come forward and say, ‘Do you know what, we got it wrong, this is what we did, we’re sorry,’ but they didn’t.”

Lorraine is also calling for the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to investigate the actions of the former head of the DPS, Catherine Roper, who has since become the chief constable of Wiltshire Police.

Wiltshire Police said: “This is relating to a Metropolitan Police case and, as such, it would not be appropriate for Chief Constable Catherine Roper to comment.”

In a statement, the IOPC said: “The complainant has been in touch with us and we have advised them that they can make a complaint about the chief constable directly to the relevant office of the police and crime commissioner (OPCC) or via the IOPC, which will be assessed by the OPCC in the first instance to decide if a referral to us is needed. If we receive a referral, we will assess it and then decide how the complaint should be dealt with.”

Previously, an IOPC spokesperson said: “In November 2022, we received an appeal from a woman who was unhappy with how the force had handled her complaint against former Met PC Phil Hunter.

“The Met had already investigated the matter and found the officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct, however the force did not believe it was necessary to arrange a disciplinary hearing as the officer was found to have committed gross misconduct at a previous hearing in 2020 relating to another inappropriate relationship with a member of the public and was placed on the police barred list. The officer resigned from the force in 2019 while under investigation for that matter.

“In July 2023, following a review of the force’s handling of the complaint investigation, we disagreed with their decision and recommended that the former officer should face a further gross misconduct hearing on this separate matter.”

The IOPC added that the force then arranged a disciplinary hearing, which found Mr Hunter had again committed gross misconduct and would have been instantly dismissed had he still been a serving officer.

Det Ch Supt Neil Smithson’s statement also acknowledged that Lorraine’s experience with the Met’s Professional Standards had been “prolonged and difficult, which has compounded her distress”.

“I wish to extend my apology for the additional distress this has caused and would like to personally acknowledge the resilience of the victim over the past several years,” he said.

“The commissioner has been clear he wants timeliness in the misconduct system improved and we are committed to doing all we can to ensure cases are concluded as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

“We have introduced a range of measures to root out those who should not serve in the Met. They include a dedicated domestic and sexual abuse investigation team with victim care specialists.”