Merseyside Police officer who had sex on duty found guilty of misconduct

A Merseyside police constable has been convicted of having sex on duty with vulnerable women, who were all victims of domestic abuse.

PC Adam Hoyle had admitted two misconduct offences involving sexual activity with two women but had denied two further misconduct charges involving similar behaviour with two other women. But a jury at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday unanimously found him guilty of those offences as well as two of unauthorised access to police computer data.

Judge David Aubrey told the 39-year-old officer: “You exploited emotionally and sexually vulnerable victims while you were a serving police officer. These are extremely serious offences. An immediate custodial sentence of some length is inevitable to ensure condign punishment is imposed on you to act as a deterrent to you and other serving police officers.”

He adjourned sentence until October 27 to enable impact statements to be obtained from the four victims and a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

Hoyle, of Yelverton Close, Halewood, was further remanded on bail. He was cleared of one offence involving unauthorised use of police computer data.

During his four day trial the court heard that the case follows an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct into his actions. Investigations began after concerns were raised by his then-partner in respect of his sexual relationships.

Steven Swift, prosecuting, said “The defendant chose to deliberately established sexual relationships and inappropriate contact with victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse within a domestic context that he encountered while they were looking to the police for support. He took advantage of his position to befriend and consequently thereafter to engage in sexual activity with them.”

The jury heard that Hoyle sometimes even arranged to meet one of them at a police station where instead of taking any details from her he kissed and groped her. The other relationship which he denied involved him regularly calling at the woman’s home and their activity developed from kissing to having sex with him “every few days” over about three months. He also sometimes even stayed overnight.

The offences he admitted involved regularly having sex while on duty with another vulnerable victim of crime and kissing and engaging in sexual activity with the fourth woman.