Former PC Nicholas Peacock has been jailed for misconduct in public office after having been found to have had a sexual relationship with a criminal suspect in a case he was investigating.
Peacock, who was with West Mercia Police at the time of the offence, has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. He pleaded guilty to the charge. His actions had also caused harm to the criminal case which he was supposed to be investigating.
Acting West Mercia Deputy Chief Constable Rachel Jones commented as follows:
“The dishonesty and lack of integrity shown by Nicholas Peacock is deplorable…. He abused his power as a Police Officer, and in the process totally undermined the trust which the victim had placed in him to investigate the case fairly and impartially”.
Sadly, Peacock was not the first, and nor will he be the last, Officer to be convicted of this particularly sinister type of misconduct in public office. It is absolutely an abuse of power – but as I have written before, the warning to the Police is that it is that very power which attracts this type of man to the profession in the first place and, historically, the strong strain of “toxic masculinity” in policing culture which has excused and even enabled this type of behaviour.
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