Officer admitted messages made him look like a ‘heinous thug’
File image of SnapChat app on mobile phone(Image: PA)
A Bristol police officer who told a married woman he had never met that he wanted to choke her and beat her with his baton during sex in a string of lewd social media messages, has been cleared of gross misconduct.
PC George Thompson, who admitted the texts made him look like a ‘heinous thug’, was found to have committed the lesser offence of misconduct, which he accepted.
But because he resigned from Avon & Somerset Police the day before his disciplinary tribunal and is now a former officer, no further action can be taken against him.
PC Thompson, based at Broadbury Road police station in Knowle West, sent the woman, Ms A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sexually explicit texts, photos and videos on SnapChat, including sex acts, the hearing was told on Tuesday, February 3.
She told him she did not want to receive those because she was married and not interested.
But the pair continued to exchange more than 1,100 messages over just 10 days in April 2024 until her husband found out and complained to the constabulary.
Avon & Somerset Police misconduct panel chairman Craig Holden ruled that it was “clearly a mutual, private and adult exchange”.
He rejected an argument by barrister Mark Ley-Morgan, representing the force, that PC Thompson had initiated unsolicited communication with Ms A or that she was a stranger to him.
Mr Holden said: “Rough sex appears to be mutually in play.
“He did know her, albeit in an online context. It was consensual.”
Mr Ley-Morgan told the hearing at police headquarters in Portishead: “While we accept the messaging was consensual, that messaging has to be seen in the context of what has been happening nationally in relation to the police service and violent, misogynistic behaviour by male police officers to female members of the public.
“There is undoubtedly concern from the public about the attitudes of some male officers.
“The other significant factor is he identified himself as a police officer – he didn’t need to do that.
“We have references to choking during sex and beating.
“But not just beating – beating with a police baton.”
He said PC Thompson called the woman a ‘slut’
Mr Ley-Morgan said: “It doesn’t matter if the messages were consensual – the messages, at least, give the impression the officer has a worrying or misogynistic attitude towards women.
“This is not simply exchanging some fruity messages.
“As the officer conceded during interview, the messages made him look like a ‘heinous thug’.”
Police Federation rep Det Sgt Andy Coggins, representing PC Thompson, who did not attend the hearing, said the total of 1,134 SnapChat two-way exchanges between the pair over such a short period showed the communication was mutual.
He said: “This was private, mutual sexting while off-duty and was not coercive or abusive.
“The liaison was already mutual when he said he was a police officer.”
Det Sgt Coggins said it only came to light when Ms A’s husband found the messages and complained to Avon & Somerset Police, and that the woman had not complained or stopped messaging PC Thompson during the previous nine days.
Mr Holden found that the breach of the professional standards in terms of authority, respect and courtesy had not been proven but that discreditable conduct was proven.
Action can be taken against former police officers who are found to have committed gross misconduct, usually by barring them from working in policing or law enforcement again and deciding that they would have been sacked without notice had they not already resigned, but no sanctions are available for findings of misconduct.