FacebookA female police officer who groped two colleagues at a drunken party has been sacked.
PC Pamela Pritchard, 29, thrust her hand into a male colleague’s groin twice and later sat on his knee and kissed him, after drinking at a leaving do at Caernarfon Rugby Club, Gwynedd, in March 2024.
The North Wales Police officer also grabbed a female colleague’s breasts after “twerking” on the dance floor, and later tried to kiss a senior colleague.
The panel at a misconduct hearing in Colwyn Bay, Conwy, found all the allegations against her were proven and that she had breached the force’s standards of behaviour.
PC Pritchard, who joined North Wales Police as a trainee in 2023, admitted her drunken behaviour was inappropriate, but denied it was gross misconduct.
She previously told the hearing she was “mortified” at seeing footage of herself on CCTV, and remembered little of what happened at the party on 29 March 2024.
The four-day hearing was told PC Pritchard was one of a large number of police officers who went to the colleague’s leaving party.
Among them was PC Pritchard and another male officer, identified to the hearing as “Police Constable B”.
PC B told the hearing on Monday he and another female colleague were at the bar with PC Pritchard when “out of the blue, PC Pritchard grabbed me below the belt and put her hand on my genitals outside my clothing”.
He said: “To no extent was it appropriate – I felt kind of humiliated at that point.”
He added that she did the same thing again later when a group of officers went outside to the smoking area.
“She grabbed my genitals outside my clothes and I distinctly remember her squeezing them.”
FacebookAt about 22:00 BST, PC Pritchard came over to PC B again and sat on his knee.
“I remember her putting her hand around my neck and kissing me on the lips,” he said.
“It was not appropriate – this was in public. Her behaviour was becoming more and more unacceptable.”
The hearing was shown CCTV from the rugby club showing PC Pritchard “twerking” on the dance floor in a series of suggestive dance moves.
A female police officer, identified to the hearing only as “Police Constable A,” said: “PC Pritchard came up from behind me, put both her arms around my neck, then put them under my armpits and grabbed my breasts and squeezed them.”
PC Pritchard apologised to PC A when giving evidence to the hearing earlier this week.
She said: “My behaviour that evening was inappropriate I’ve never acted like that before.
“I’m absolutely mortified at what’s happened – I don’t recognise the person I see on that CCTV – all I can do is apologise.”
She broke down in tears as she said: “I feel I’ve let down the police, I’ve let down myself and I’ve let down my family.”
She said she has had “panic and nightmares” and felt “people thought I was a sexual predator”.
The panel chair, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Allsop, said on Thursday that “all the allegations against PC Pritchard have been found proven”.
“Overall, the panel finds that the breaches of standards are of medium to high seriousness which could justify dismissal as gross misconduct,” he said.
Barrister Fiona Clancy, representing PC Pritchard, had argued she should be allowed to keep her job in the police.
“She accepts her behaviour was unacceptable. This was a short-lived episode, of brief duration, and there is no risk of it happening again.
“PC Pritchard has been doing voluntary work while she has been waiting for this hearing, and has kept her fitness levels up – there is a genuine motivation to keep serving the community.”