A Metropolitan Police detective constable has been dismissed without notice after a misconduct panel found he sexually assaulted a male colleague during a team Christmas party at a south London pub.
The allegation against DC Eugene Emmanuel centred on events at the Windmill Pub on Clapham Common on 7th December 2023, where officers from Specialist Crime South had gathered for a Christmas celebration. Alcohol had been consumed by a number of those present, with multiple colleagues describing DC Emmanuel as drunk, slurring, and unsteady on his feet.
At around 8pm, Officer A went into the men’s toilets. DC Emmanuel entered moments later and went to the urinal directly next to Officer A, despite the toilets being largely empty. At that moment, Emmanuel deliberately and intentionally pushed a finger or fingers between Officer A’s buttocks over clothing, with sufficient force for at least one finger to make contact with Officer A’s anus. Officer A described feeling a short, sudden, forceful upward thrusting motion, being pushed forward, and experiencing the sensation of anal contact through his clothes. Turning, he saw Emmanuel beside him.
A former officer who was in a cubicle at the time told the hearing he heard Officer A say, ‘what the fuck are you doing’, registering what he described as a shocked tone.
DC Harrison, who encountered Officer A shortly after he left the toilets, said the impact was immediate and visible: ‘as [he] walked back to the bar, [his] colleague DC Harrison asked him if he is ok to which he said “No, I’m not”. [Officer A] then got upset, and started crying…[Officer A] then told [DC Harrison] what had happened in the toilets. [He] felt very embarrassed and humiliated, but also angry at what had happened’.
Emmanuel denied the allegation’s substance. While accepting that he touched Officer A at the urinal, he claimed he merely touched Officer A on the lower back as part of a joking ‘friendly greeting’, likening it to how he had surprised another colleague earlier in the evening. The panel rejected that explanation as implausible, saying it was ‘incredible’ Emmanuel would not have registered any reaction if the touch had been as innocent as he suggested, and finding it improbable that he did not hear the expletive spoken by Officer A when another witness in a cubicle did.
Having found the physical act proved, the panel went on to conclude Emmanuel’s actions amounted to sexual assault, pointing to the nature of the contact, the location, and the circumstances: a private area of the body, in a toilet, while Officer A was at a urinal, where such contact would be unusual. It also found the conduct breached standards of professional behaviour relating to discreditable conduct and authority, respect, and courtesy, and that the breach amounted to gross misconduct.
But the panel’s reasoning contradicted its own findings. It stated that it considered ‘the assault to be sexual in nature but not in purpose’, explaining that it did not find the assault to be sexually motivated. Seemingly in an attempt to separate sexual motivation from sexual conduct. Given that the sexual assault was proven, the force’s use of the term ‘not in purpose’ is extraneous and academic.
In sanctioning Emmanuel, the panel assessed culpability as high. They rejected the officer’s suggestions that as he was an alcoholic his self-induced intoxication reduced his responsibility. The panel concluded that a final written warning would be insufficient, and that dismissal without notice was the appropriate outcome.
