Judge Michael Gledhill referred to the “torrid atmosphere” among young officers at Belgravia Police Station during the three-day trial at Southwark Crown Court of a community support officer accused of sexual assault.
PCSO John Parker allegedly fondled a 29-year-old woman several times in February 2008, asking her to go to the station’s prayer room with him to have sex, according to the Telegraph.
He was cleared of five counts of sexual assault after a three-day trial, but has been suspended for a year and is awaiting disciplinary action.
Judge Gledhill said: “I have expressed fairly strong views about the lack of professionalism that persisted within the team of PCSOs at Belgravia Police Station at the end of 2008 and 2009. I was shocked at the lack of supervision of any of those officers.”
Gledhill said Parker was “unable to distinguish between the boundaries of professional and unprofessional behaviour, of sexually appropriate and sexually inappropriate behaviour.”
Belgravia Police Station was at the centre of a row about institutionalised racism last year.
