A drunken police officer has found guilty of gross misconduct today (December 4) after groping two colleagues and trying to kiss an inspector at a leaving do.
PC Pamela Pritchard, 29, also told another male officer “I want to f*** you” during the boozy night out at a Caernarfon Rugby Club in North Wales, a misconduct hearing heard.
She was found to have groped a female officer’s breasts on the dancefloor and twice touched a male officer to the groin area.
PC Pritchard also tried to kiss a male inspector “causing him to pull away” while he was stood at the bar.
North Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Chris Allsop said her offending had breached the force’s standards of professional behaviour relating to authority, respect and courtesy.
He said: “The panel find the conduct is of a level that could justify dismissal and is therefore at the level of gross misconduct.”
(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)
PC Pritchard is now fighting for her career in the police force and may be sacked after the panels verdict.
Fiona Clancy, representing PC Pritchard, asked that she be punished with a final written warning “of a significant length of time” rather than be sacked.
She said: “There is no risk of repetition of the misconduct again. This was a short lived episode.”
A fellow cop, named only as PC B, said Pritchard groped him “out of the blue” when he was waiting to get a drink at the bar of the club, where she was also seen twerking on the dancefloor.
He said: “PC Pritchard grabbed me below the belt and put her hand on my genitals outside my clothing”.
“To no extent was it appropriate – I felt kind of humiliated at that point.”
PC B told the misconduct hearing PC Pritchard that she repeated the action when he was outside in a smoking area.
He said: “She did the same thing again. She grabbed my genitals outside my clothes and I distinctly remember her squeezing them.”
(Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE)
PC B also said that she later sat on his knee during the evening.
He said: “I remember her putting her hand around my neck and kissing me on the lips.
“It was not appropriate – this was in public. Her behaviour was becoming more and more unacceptable.”
PC Pritchard, who is a former NHS worker and prison guard, joined North Wales Police in 2023 and said it was her “dream job” to become an officer.
She was suspended over the incident whilst still in her probationary period following the actions just nine months after joining the force.
PC Pritchard insisted none of the alleged gropes were sexual and would have been accidental contact at most.
The mother-of-one broke down in tears earlier in the hearing as she told the panel: “I’ve let down the police force, myself, my friends and family and most of all I’ve let down my little girl.
“Please don’t think I’ve gone away and I haven’t thought about this from the moment I woke up to the moment I go to sleep.”
PC Pritchard denied breaching standards of professional behaviour and also denies gross misconduct from the bash in March 2024 but the case against her was found proved on the balance of probabilities. She was cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
The hearing in Colwyn Bay police HQ continues.
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