Two officers with the Surrey Police in the UK are out of a job after they were caught ignoring emergency call-outs to have sex in their squad car instead. Sergeant Molly Edwards and PC Richard Paton were found out by fellow officers, who bugged their car when their behavior became suspicious. They’ve both since resigned, SurreyLive reports.
- Their behavior was completely inappropriate. Surrey Police admitted that both Edwards and Paton had breached professional behavior standards and was pleased that the pair resigned from the force before Surrey Police planned to meet for a misconduct hearing. Had they not voluntarily left their positions, they would have been fired.
- The calls they ignored were quite serious. It was discovered that Edwards and Paton ignored a burglary call-out, with Paton saying instead, “Aaw, let’s just get naked.” They also parked up for 15 minutes near a hospital and ignored a call to help two assault victims get there.
- Edwards and Paton tried to make excuses. Edwards claimed they couldn’t transport the assault victims to the hospital because of a risk of cross-contamination since they’d been at the scene of the crime earlier that night. She also claimed that other units in Woking had already attended the burglary.
- They carried on their sexual exploits over three weeks. Edwards and Paton were put on night shift together in September 2019 and ignored their job to have sex with each other for about three weeks. Edwards, who’s married, initially denied that she’d ever have sex in a police car but eventually admitted they had involvement and said she knew what they were doing was wrong.
- Both were found guilty of gross misconduct. Both Edwards and Paton faced three counts of gross misconduct charges: one for engaging in sexual activity whilst on duty, another for failing to discharge their professional duties, and one for actively misleading their manager about their relationship. Paton faced a fourth as well for allegedly making racist comments about a former Asian police officer.
