A serving police officer and a former colleague had sexual relationships with women they met on duty.

PC Anthony Ritchie and former PC Steven Walters of West Midlands Police met the three women while reporting to separate domestic abuse incidents.

Ritchie, 46, had sex with one woman after arresting her partner and began a sexual relationship with another after trying to arrest her son.

Both were found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office.

The men, described as predatory during the trial, have been told to expect jail terms when they are sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on 21 September. They had denied the offences.

Ritchie will now be subject to a misconduct hearing, police said after the 12-day trial.

Ritchie first began a sexual relationship with a woman who had reported a domestic violence incident in 2014, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said.

The pair were found to have contacted each other on Ritchie's personal phone and had sex after he arrested the woman's partner.

The woman then told him she had been pressured into oral sex by Walters the year before when he responded to a domestic abuse call.

When different officers attended the same woman's home for an unrelated incident in 2018, she made disclosures to them, sparking the IOPC investigation.

'Deplorable'

In May 2021, a second woman said she had been in a sexual relationship with Ritchie in 2014.

Ritchie asked the woman on a date after going to her home to arrest her son, had sex with her while on duty and persuaded her to lie to senior officers about how they met after the woman's son complained.

Then, in November 2021, a third woman complained that Walters initiated oral sex while attending a domestic abuse incident at her partner's home in 2013.

The trial also heard Walters was jailed for sexually assaulting two different women while on duty in 2015 and was dismissed by WMP in 2016.

Derrick Campbell, IOPC regional director, said: "Abuse of power for sexual gain is a breach of the public's trust, which seriously undermines confidence in the police service.

"The actions of PC Ritchie and ex-PC Walters were quite rightly described as predatory during the trial".

Deputy Chief Constable Scott Green said: "The behaviour and actions of PC Anthony Ritchie and ex-PC Steven Walters is deplorable and they have quite rightly been found guilty of misconduct in a public office.

"I applaud the bravery and tenacity of the women who came forward so that these men could be brought to justice." (BBC)

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