A police constable has been dismissed without notice after a misconduct report revealed he sent as many as 90 sexually explicit messages a day to a dozen women while on shift for Cheshire Police. The findings against former PC Anthony Spelman were set out in a report published this week by Chief Constable Mark Roberts, following a private accelerated misconduct hearing on April 28.
According to the Liverpool Echo, which first laid bare the contents of the police document, Spelman exchanged messages describing rape role-playing fantasies with women who knew he was on duty, and pursued one mother whose son he had previously arrested after finding her on a dating site. The newspaper has now published a picture of the disgraced officer, who is understood to live in the Newton-le-Willows area.
What the misconduct report revealed
The report logs Spelman's activity between April and September 2023. On April 12, he exchanged 18 messages in a sexualised conversation between 8.53am and 10.05am while the woman involved knew he was on duty. The following day, when asked by a woman whether he was into anything extreme, he replied that he liked rape role-playing and the risk element of being outside.
Roberts found that Spelman shared these fantasies with two women and, given his role protecting vulnerable people, the behaviour was wholly inappropriate and revealed misogynistic views. The chief constable said the sheer volume of messages showed an all-consuming desire for sexual gratification.
Spelman sent one woman a message on August 19 stating he was in the cells at Middlewich but would rather be elsewhere, in terms too crude to reproduce. The report also states he searched for pornographic content while on duty three times in September 2023, and that he sent images of women, including nude pictures, to friends while making derogatory comments about them.
An officer who should never have worn the uniform
Roberts wrote that Spelman offered no mitigation, and that his length of service made the behaviour more shocking rather than less, because it demonstrated personal views wholly at odds with the constabulary's values.
Frankly it would be impossible to be diligently discharging your policing duties, given the frequency of these exchanges.
The chief constable concluded that dismissal was necessary to maintain public confidence in policing, uphold standards and protect the public by barring Spelman's re-entry into the profession. A lesser sanction, he wrote, would not deter misconduct so completely out of keeping with colleagues' ethics and values.
One former colleague, speaking to the Liverpool Echo on condition of anonymity, was blunter still. He said Spelman was a nightmare to manage, played the women against each other, and that you could see this coming for years.
Deputy chief constable: he thought he could act without consequence
Deputy Chief Constable Mike Evans said officers swear an oath of honesty and integrity before beginning their careers, and that Spelman ignored those core principles.
Sadly, former PC Spelman ignored these core guidelines and principles on a number of occasions and thought he could act in such an unacceptable way without consequence. He was wrong.
Evans added that Spelman's actions fell well below what is expected and had resulted in his dismissal and a bar from re-entering the profession, and warned that anyone breaching the force's principles would face similar consequences.
Another blow to public confidence in policing
The case will do nothing to reassure a public that has watched a steady erosion of trust in the forces sworn to protect it. The revelations echo a wider pattern of misconduct in British policing, including the conviction this week of a Scottish officer, Carmichael John Williamson, who was