Former police officer had affair with alleged crime victim

A former police officer had an affair for three years with an alleged victim of domestic violence, who he met while investigating her claims.

Alex MacPherson, who was a West Mercia Police officer for 12 years, was still the investigating the crime when he first had sex with the woman in 2018.

A police misconduct hearing held this week found that the officer would have been sacked without notice had he not ‘relatively recently’ resigned.

Mr MacPherson, who was a former officer in South Worcestershire, was not in attendance at the misconduct hearing or represented.

Barney Branston, representing the police force, said that the former officer faced two allegations of inappropriate contact with vulnerable females – both of which were subject to an order hiding their identities during the hearing.

In August 2018, Mr MacPherson was the attending officer in an alleged domestic assault where Ms C was the alleged victim.

Mr Branston said that woman had mental health difficulties which Mr MacPherson had recognised by writing in the police log. Between then and October that year the pair exchanged 372 text messages with the officer using his police issued mobile phone.

“The messages became more and more flirtatious and of a sexual nature,” added Mr Branston. “This led to them having sexual intercourse at her house at the end of his shift.

“A day later Mr MacPherson updated the log with her retraction statement. He was still the officer in the case when he was having sex with her.

“Their affair continued for three years. It was inappropriate and Mr MacPherson knew Ms C was vulnerable. The fact that she was a willing participant is irrelevant. He accepted that he shouldn’t have had an affair with her.

“He continued messaging her on his personal phone and admitted that he deliberately wanted to keep their relationship ‘below the radar’.”

Miss C said she was at a ‘very low place’ when they first had sex having previously been assaulted. Later messages sent by Miss C claimed the police officer had ‘used her’ for two years and that she had attempted to end her life as Mr MacPherson was married and their relationship was ‘unlikely to progress’.

On interview Mr MacPherson accepted that should not have allowed their relationship to develop from ‘banter’.

The former police officer said he had not seen the police’s ‘Don’t Cross The Line’ policy and claimed that he had not received that training.

The police accepted that there was nothing in his training record, but said that on the ‘balance of probability’ he would have known about the policies.

Wendy Evans, chair of the misconduct hearing bench, said that Miss C was ‘highly vulnerable’.

She said that MacPherson ‘failed to act with self-control’ and abused his power by commencing a relationship with Miss C.

“He failed to maintain those boundaries and exploited his position for a sexual purpose,” said Mrs Evans.

A second allegation related to a woman, known as Ms A, who was the victim of criminal damage and assault by a customer at the bank she worked in.

Mr MacPherson was accused of seeking a personal relationship with the victim while he was the officer in charge of an investigation.

“This relationship never blossomed,” added Mr Branston. “He carried on sending text messages which were unprofessional and inappropriate.

“In his own words many of those messages were creepy. He also made unnecessary visits to her place of work. This resulted in her colleagues jokingly commenting ‘your copper is here’.

“The texts and number of visits made to her workplace were excessive as there was no real reason for him turning up. Calling her ‘beautiful’ was also wholly inappropriate of a police officer.

“He also said it was ‘nice dealing with a lovely person, sweet dreams’ and that she ‘didn’t need beauty sleep’.

Mrs Evans said that the misconduct panel found that MacPherson had tried to pursue a sexual relationship with her and that he had made ‘unnecessary’ visits to the bank.

“He exploited his position to try and pursue a relationship,” added Mrs Evans.

It was concluded that had Mr MacPherson still been a police officer he would have been sacked without notice. The misconduct hearing also recommended that he should be added to the barred list.