Met Police officer sacked for sexting elderly woman and calling child 'cute'

A Met Police officer who sexted an elderly woman and sent creepy messages to a young girl has left the force in disgrace. Former PC Andrew Gilligan used Twitter to send inappropriate messages to three members of the public, including 'highly sexualised' texts and unsolicited photographs of intimate body parts, a misconduct hearing heard in February.

Gilligan bombarded a child with messages, calling her 'cute' and requesting she add him on Snapchat, and messaged someone with 'mild autism', the tribunal was told. All three complainants were disturbed by the messages and went to their local police station to report the officer's unpleasant behaviour.

Gilligan admitted the misconduct, but his mitigation for doing so was redacted from the misconduct report. In any case, this was dismissed by the chair who said he was responsible for his own actions. The offence was deemed 'high harm' as the public would not expect a police officer to act in such a way.

Assistant Commissioner Professionalism Rachel Williams added: "It is entirely unacceptable for police officers who hold a position of trust and authority in society to engage in inappropriate messaging to members of the public. Doing so undermines public trust and confidence in policing, as well as the reputation of the MPS.

"The public could not have confidence in FPC Gilligan to treat them with courtesy and respect. Nor would they have confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service if it appeared not to take such behaviour by police officers, extremely seriously.

"The gravity of FPC Gilligan’s behaviour means that I do not consider that any sanction less than a dismissal without notice would have been justified. As such, my decision is that FPC Gilligan would have been dismissed without notice and should now be placed on the College of Policing’s barred list."

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