Police officer ‘got domestic abuse victims to perform oral sex on him’
Two West Midlands Police officers who preyed on vulnerable women have been found guilty of misconduct in public office.
Steven Walters, 55, attended the homes of domestic violence victims on callouts and initiated oral sex with them, while Anthony Ritchie, 46, asked vulnerable victims out on dates.
Ritchie, of East Meadway, Tile Cross, was described as a ‘predator’ by one of his victims as he still described himself as a police officer on his Tinder profile, even while suspended from the force during the investigation into his conduct.
He was given management advice in July 2014 after asking a vulnerable woman out on a date. Five months earlier he’d attended her home as she was the victim of an armed robbery, then messaged the victim: ‘At least you got to meet a fit police officer. You gonna let me take you out Friday then?’
Ritchie signed a statement admitting his behaviour was ‘unprofessional’ and wouldn’t be repeated – but by then he’d already met another vulnerable woman and started an illicit relationship with her.
He attended her home to arrest her ex-partner but returned with coffee and invited himself in. They had sex multiple times and he even met her stepmother.
The victim fell pregnant at a time she had been sleeping with her ex-partner and Ritchie turned up in a police van to ask if the baby was his. Highly sexualised messages he’d sent her were also read out to the court during a trial at Birmingham crown court.
Ritchie met another woman, a widow, having attended her home to arrest her son, who wasn’t there. After leaving he phoned her to ask: ‘I don’t normally do this but any chance I can phone you when I finish?’
The pair developed a sexual relationship and he was accused of encouraging her to get rid of her late husband’s belongings.
When their relationship was investigated Ritchie told her to lie and say they met by chance at a pub.
Meanwhile, Walters,ofWinster Green, Newhall in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, initiated oral sex with two women, one of whom went on to have a sexual relationship with Ritchie, while responding to domestic abuse incidents in 2013.
In November 2021, another woman complained Walters initiated oral sex while attending a domestic abuse incident at her partner’s home in 2013.
Ritchie and Walters were each found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office following a trial.
They’re due to be sentenced on September 21, and Judge Roderick Henderson warned they should ‘almost certainly’ expect to serve prison sentences, adding they shamed their profession.
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