(microsoft word - a new sexual assault referral centre is set to open in nor\205)

A NEW Sexual Assault Referral Centre is set to open in North Wales.
Feb 18 2009 Daily Post
North Wales Police Authority has authorised the majority of the £700,000 funding for the
centre which will open in Colwyn Bay. It will specialise in investigating sex crimes and providing
support for victims.
Detective Superintendent Alan Green, Head of the Force’s Public Protection Unit, said: “In the
past when people have been the victim of a serious sexual assault, they would have been taken to
various locations around North Wales for medical examination and an interview”.
“The whole idea of SARC is that, in the long run, it will provide all the services that any victim of sucha dreadful crime needs. There will be facilities for counseling and for any health treatments thatpeople need following such an attack. An awful lot of people choose, for whatever reason, not toreport offences against them”. The SARC will be unveiled by North Wales Police at a later date this year.
Detective raped woman at St Asaph police station. Daily Post Mar 3 2009
A DETECTIVE raped a vulnerable woman while on duty in a police station, a jury was told.
Timothy Michael Jones, 36, denies two counts of raping a woman in St Asaph police station, whileworking for the North Wales force.
The married dad is alleged to have taken the woman, a heroin addict, into a side room and forced herto perform a sex act on him, then raped her.
She had been called into the station in August 2006, to be told a complaint she’d made of gang
rape by three men would not be investigated any further.
Prosecutor Robin Spencer QC told Mold Crown Court that Jones, of Morley Road, Rhyl, had visitedthe alleged victim in the side room, where he pushed her against a wall and attacked her.
Jones also denies a third and separate charge of raping a second woman in the shower at her
home, between March and July 2007.
She had made a complaint to police, he had visited her bedsit and it was alleged that he had askedher to remove her bra. He also spoke to her about porn DVDs and she had gone to a neighbour’shome to get some for him.
He came back a week later when she was taking a shower, burst into the bathroom and raped her,the prosecution claimed.
Mr Spencer described Jones as a man of "a particularly strong sex drive", which he said was
"almost to the point of obsession". He said police colleagues had at one point found a sachet of
Kamagra, a gel form of Viagra, in his locker at the police station, before he resigned from the force in
April .
Mr Spencer said the rape allegations had come to light after Jones was cleared last March of a
sexual offence against a woman he’d met fleetingly at a police station.
In his own evidence in that trial he’d told the jury he’d been to the woman’s home while off duty, theyhad kissed and she had performed a sex act on him.
He had said at his trial he was ashamed and embarrased, was not proud of it, and knew it was wrongon all levels – as a husband, father and police officer.
Following that complaint, police colleagues phoned women he’d called on his mobile phone and thetwo women made the rape complaints.
Mr Spencer told the jury yesterday it was an unusual case, adding: "truth is sometimes stranger thanfiction". Both rape complainants were vulnerable women whose complaints of crime the defendant wassupposed to be investigating, he said.
Both women were vulnerable and feared that they would not be believed.
"The two women did not know each other. The complaints of rape were made entirely independent ofeach other," said Mr Spencer.
The trial is proceeding before Judge Dafydd Hughes. It is expected to last two weeks.
The PPP comment …. this is another case of Perception versus Reality. These vulnerable
women perceived that their local police would support them and thoroughly investigate their
allegations. The Reality was that their trust was betrayed and they were further abused by this
officer. Rape cases are notoriously complex and difficult and particularly so where drug
addiction is involved. The officers selected for such duties must be known be free of such
obsessions and we would expect that experienced female officers would be preferable. The
police force is a close knit community and officers of various ranks must have been aware of
the officers’ obsessive sex drive but he was given the rape cases to investigate despite a
recent trial. It doesn’t say much for force discipline when such attacks can take place in the
£35 million St Asaph HQ. It is beholden on the Police Authority’s Professional Standards
committee and it’s chairman to oversee the investigation into this most serious management
failing.
The PPP are committed to crime prevention and the SARC, in a way, is an IRONIC SYMBOL of
our failure to prevent rape and protect a vulnerable group, OUR WOMEN, in our community.

Source: http://www.properpolicing.org.uk/articles/A%20NEW%20Sexual%20Assault%20Referral%20Centre.pdf