Met Pc ‘put wife through years of abuse at home’

(Andrew Matthews/PA)
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A serving Metropolitan Police officer is under investigation over claims he subjected his wife to years of control and domestic abuse, a court has heard.

Pc Ronald Philpot was placed on restricted duties and removed from work involving the public in October 2020 after his wife Kim accused the officer of coercive control, assault, abusive behaviour and sending malicious communications.

The Court of Appeal heard the officer was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in July 2016 and reported for an alleged assault on his wife and son in July 2017, but no further action was taken.

In the 2020 report, Mrs Philpot accused her husband of hostile and violent behaviour, including “threatening and abusive outbursts and insults towards the family, phone messages to his partner, psychological abuse, and physical assaults”.

The Crown Prosecution Service opted not to pursue criminal charges against Pc Philpot in March 2021, but the officer still faces the possibility of disciplinary proceedings, the court heard. News of the case emerged as three senior judges refused the officer’s challenge to an order made in the Met’s disciplinary process, banning him from contacting his estranged wife.

He argued the senior officer in charge of the disciplinary process had over-reached with the ban, placing unfair restrictions on his private life.

But Lord Justice Bean, delivering the judgment with Lady Justice Thirlwall and Lady Justice Nicola Davies, said the restriction is “proportional on the facts”.

The judges concluded the effect on Pc Philpot, who is still able to contact his children, is “minimal” as his wife has no interest in seeing him.

They added that police officers facing disciplinary proceedings “remain under a duty to act with integrity and to behave in a manner which does not discredit the police service or undermine public confidence in it”.

The ruling, published this week, also reveals that 272 officers within the Met Police are in a similar position to Pc Philpot, being banned from contacting a witness while they face disciplinary proceedings.

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