Sex pest PC ‘preyed on’ female colleagues, hearing told

A Brighton police officer is facing the sack for relentlessly “preying on” female colleagues with sexual advances.

PC Lochlan Bashford, 23, a Brighton response officer, harassed two women he worked with on nights out, following one around the dancefloor at a nightclub and tapping her bum.

He told the other one she should come home with him – and when she turned him down, turned to another colleague he knew was a lesbian and told her “I know that you always wanted to f*** a man, come back with me.”.

Both nights came after he had already been warned about his behaviour in April last year, when he repeatedly asked one of the women, Officer A, over to his flat for dinner. After his sergeant pulled him up, he apologised to Officer A.

In June, he was at a work night at Molly Malone’s in West Street with another colleague, Officer C. He repeatedly tried to persuade her to come back to his home in Shoreham, even after she told him she had a long-term boyfriend.

It was only after she made it crystal clear she was not interested that he turned to her colleague, Officer D, telling her if Officer C wasn’t interested, then she had to come with him instead.

Officer C told the hearing he had subsequently apologised, saying: “He told me he understood he had made me feel very uncomfortable and he was apologising and we should draw a line under it.”

Then in August, he was on a night out with Officer A, which started in the Black Lion in Black Lion Street and then moved to Popworld nightclub in West Street.

He had been talking again about his offer of dinner, then standing close to her in the queue. In the club, he bought her a soft drink as she was driving, and put his arm around her.

She kept moving away, but he kept following her, standing behind her on the dancefloor even when she moved to a different part of it, when she felt a tapping on her bum.

Eventually, she felt she had to leave the club to get away from him.

Officer A said: “I felt incredibly vulnerable because despite what I felt were my best efforts to discourage his advances itwas clear that he either ignored me or there were underlying intentions.

“I felt there was a sexual purpose behind it.

“I felt like I was being preyed on, that I was a target. There was no one else he was behaving like this to in the room. I was being singled out and no matter what I was doing, moving away or turning away, it was just relentless and there was no let up or way out.”

Sussex Police’s barrister Briony Ballard told the panel PC Bashford has accepted his behaviour amounted to misconduct and is a breach of professional standards – but argues it does not amount to gross misconduct.

The two day hearing, which began yesterday at Sussex Police’s Lewes HQ, resumes today.