By Charlotte Webster-
A former Essex Police officer was sacked after claiming to have “crazy feelings” about a woman and harassing her with text messages in pursuit of a sexual relationship .
Rawlings, who started at Essex Police College in February 2019, resigned from the force in November 2022.
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A misconduct hearing this week heard of more than 20 allegations against Rawlings, relating to matters of honesty and integrity, authority, respect and courtesy, and discreditable conduct, which are part of the police’s code of conduct.
The female victim was a “vulnerable person” and received repeated messages from Rawlings while he was a police officer despite turning down Rawlings advances on multiple occasions.
One message from the victim said “I’m not interested in you and I never will be. Why won’t you accept that? I know we have tried in the past but I think a month or so without talking to each other would be for the best. There will be enough time for me to feel better and focus and for you to try and move on past this.
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“I do not think us talking constantly is good for either of us. If you want us to go down the route of us talking as friends then all these chats need to stop. Please. I’m asking you to respect my decision here.”
Ms Joanna Kane, counsel for Essex Police, told the hearing: “The nature of several of the communications sent to Person A(THEVICTIM) lacked courtesy in their nature and were persistent. This was despite [Rawlings] being aware that she was not interested.”
“He ignored her request to decrease the frequency of contact and persisted with attempts to be in a sexual relationship with Person A.”
The hearing’s panel concluded that Rawlings’ behaviour did amount to gross misconduct. Mr Clemes said: “He persistently overstepped the mark. There were times when the behaviour was explicitly discouraged but he carried on regardless.”
The chair added: “He bombarded Person A with social media messages about their relationship as he saw it and wanted it to be and she made it clear she did not want it to be.
“This is a case where the former officer has to have disciplinary reaction noted against them. If he was a serving police officer he would have been dismissed by us today and we place his name on the barred list.”
Police forces in the UK have been ravaged with a series of misconduct hearings in the past few years, with The Metropolitan Police leading the way in the number of convictions and dismissals for misconduct.
Essex Police has itself had over a dozen officers found to have committed misconduct in the course of their duty.
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