The Chief Constable of the PSNI has vowed to “relentlessly pursue” officers abusing their position for sexual purposes after a report found evidence of predatory behaviour in the police.
Jon Boutcher told the policing board that such incidents make him and the senior team “so angry” and serve to “undermine everything we’re trying to achieve”.
A report published this week analysed allegations involving officers (all male and aged between 30 and 50) between 2018 and 2024 and found predatory behaviour features in 30% of the most serious cases investigated by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland.
The report also highlighted the vulnerabilities of the 36 victims (all female) identified in the cases, from being a victim of crime, to mental health issues, domestic abuse, suicidal ideation or addiction.
There was evidence of targeted exploitation of women, with police officers in those cases often making inappropriate use of police systems to identify women for sexual exploitation or acquire further information in relation to potential victims.
In his opening remarks to the board on Thursday, Mr Boutcher said “any abuse of position for sexual purposes is not simply wholly unacceptable, it’s abhorrent”.
He said: “It represents the most egregious breach of trust and a violation of the standards we expect of police officers and staff.”
He added: “I want to reassure this board and everyone watching that we will relentlessly pursue and deal with these people.
“Our collective commitment as a senior team and as an organisation is for zero tolerance for this type of activity.
“While the ombudsman’s report identifies serious individual misconduct, importantly, very importantly, it very much recognises the positive strategic direction we have taken and the significant work done to strengthen professional standards, enhance vetting and misconduct reporting processes and for learning from past failures.”
The Chief Constable said the organisation “will do everything necessary to deal with such issues” but that “the numbers of these officers are numerically incredibly small”.
“Albeit any such officer, even one, is unacceptable,” he said.
“The vast majority of our people are amazing and are more disgusted at this behaviour than anyone, because it undermines who we are and what we’re here to do – to protect society and look after vulnerable people, not exploit them.”
Mr Boutcher added: “There is no place for these people in the PSNI, we will find them and we will sack them.”
Political representatives on the board, Alliance MLA Nuala McAllister and Sinn Fein MLA Linda Dillon, both raised concerns on the findings of the ombudsman’s report.
Mr Boutcher replied: “When I arrived here I was concerned about the levels of misogyny in society here, and I don’t know if that’s simply because it’s more prevalent here, or simply because I’ve not noticed that prevalence increase generally in society, because of the online harms that we see and the way mainly young men are being shown things that nobody should look at through the internet, and being developed into people who become bad adults, as opposed to good, positive members of the community.”
He outlined that he had met with female officers and one of a number of initiatives to spur on cultural change was having officers “commit to a statement of intent with regards to our values and our behaviours”.
He said: “I can absolutely assure you that this type of behaviour, it makes me so angry, the members of this senior team so angry, because I know, because of the work that the rank and file do, some of which I described in my opening remarks, this undermines everything we’re trying to achieve.
“It goes to recruitment, it goes to trust in cops, goes to reporting, so we will work incredibly closely with the ombudsman to make sure that, and there will be, I think, almost certainly, quite considerably historical cases that will emerge from this work.
“And I would encourage anyone with any negative experience or any information about any such wrongdoing to please come forward and report it to either ourselves or the ombudsman so that we can clear house with regards to these behaviours.”
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.