West Yorkshire Police officer sacked for asking vulnerable woman for sex while on duty

A police officer has been sacked for propositioning a vulnerable woman for sex while he was on duty.
PC Darren Booth has been sacked without notice (stock image)PC Darren Booth has been sacked without notice (stock image)
PC Darren Booth has been sacked without notice (stock image)

The woman, known as Miss A, told a four-day hearing how West Yorkshire Police constable Darren Booth asked her for sex and suggested she arrange a threesome after he was called to deal with reports of anti-social behaviour in Castleford in March last year.

The woman said she later met the officer after he finished his shift and he made further sexual comments and asked to kiss her at the flat where she was staying.

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Pc Booth, 40, claimed he had been set up by the woman and her friend but a panel, which included West Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Angela Williams, found on Thursday that gross misconduct had been proved.

The panel ordered that the officer, who denied all claims he had propositioned the woman for sex, should be dismissed without notice.

The panel's independent chairman Geoffrey Payne said Pc Booth's explanation that he had gone to the flat to get legitimate information from Miss A after midnight, by himself and without telling anyone was not credible.

He noted that when two police sergeants arrived at the flat, after they were tipped off by Miss A, Pc Booth gave no explanation for why he was there in "highly irregular" circumstances and just looked anxiously at the floor.

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-> Read the previous day's evidence hereMr Payne said: "It is significant that Pc Booth did not immediately ask to speak to one of the sergeants to explain his presence at the flat."

He said that although 36-year-old Miss A was an alcoholic ex-drug addict with a string of convictions for dishonesty and Pc Booth was of exemplary previous character, this did not mean the panel would automatically believe his account.

Mr Payne said the panel found it was "unlikely" an officer would go to the lengths Pc Booth said he had done to get the information he described from a woman who had not given him anything up to that point.

The chairman said Pc Booth's actions were aggravated by Miss A's vulnerability, as she was a victim of domestic violence as well as an alcoholic former drug user.

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Mr Payne said the officer's behaviour was "sexually motivated and exploited the power imbalance between them".

He said: "Pc Booth's behaviour fell a long way below the high standards the public rightly expect of police officers."

The hearing heard Pc Booth, who is from Castleford, had been with West Yorkshire Police for 14 years - five as a community support officer and then nine as an officer.

He denied all accusations during the hearing, which was held at a police station in Wakefield with a video link for press and public at another station in Normanton, seven miles away.

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Nicholas Walker, representing Pc Booth, argued that his client should be given a final written warning.

Mr Walker said: "The consequences to him are likely to be ruinous".

The hearing heard the officer's father was also a policeman, with Mr Walker adding: "He comes from a proud local tradition and a proud local policing tradition.

"He is a decent and committed community officer."

The barrister added: "He is someone who has made a lot of difference to people in his locality."