Christopher Leach has been sacked from South Wales Police for filming himself masturbating in his uniform while in his work toilets and sending them to a witness.
PC Christopher Leach, 37, sent the explicit videos to a woman he met after she had witnessed a crime. He was sacked after a disciplinary hearing in Cardiff found he breached standards of professional behavior amounting to gross misconduct.
Divorcee PC Leach admitted filming two videos in the toilets at Cathay’s police station in Cardiff while in uniform, saying it gave him a ‘thrill’.
But the officer denied he was on duty when he filmed himself masturbating. PC Leach served with South Wales Police for five years.
He told the misconduct hearing that he filmed the explicit videos before his shift started, kept them on his phone and sent them to the woman if she asked.
The woman, 35, described as a ‘vulnerable’ witness, received videos from PC Leach after he finished his shifts. After he was caught, he told senior officers that when he was unable to see her, they would communicate by sending explicit messages and videos to each other.
The hearing was told the officer came into contact with the woman because of his police work and that she was ‘vulnerable to an abuse of trust or power’.
PC Leach, who has worked for South Wales Police for five years, denied misconduct but was dismissed without notice by the disciplinary panel. Jonathan Walters, representing South Wales Police, told the hearing that PC Leach met the woman while following up a crime report and that she was a ‘potential witness’.
Leach, 37, was dismissed for filming and sending the videos PC Leach went to her home address to ask her to sign a witness statement and gave her his personal phone number.
He told the hearing he wanted to forge a friendship because the two ‘had a lot in common’ and were both ‘professional people’. PC Leach was in the process of separating from his ex-wife with whom he had a young son and was in a relationship with another police officer at the time, the hearing was told.
Mr Walters said: ‘It was Leach’s intention to begin a sexual relationship.’ He read texts the cop sent to the woman describing her as ‘stunning’ and ‘gorgeous’ and asking if she wanted to go for a coffee. PC Leach claimed his comments were ‘harmless flirting’ between two friends.
The officer was not found to have had an improper sexual relationship with the woman. But he was found to have made five breaches of standards of professional behavior amounting to gross misconduct.
He was also found proven of two breaches of ‘honesty and integrity’ by seeking to mislead his supervisor by failing to disclose the full extent of contact between himself and the woman. The panel concluded: ‘The only appropriate and proportionate outcome is that of his dismissal from the force without notice.’
