Terry Cooke ‘abused his position’ to target young women

Terry Cooke, formerly of Hampshire Constabulary, was struck off at a secret misconduct hearing in April 2021 after he was found to have “systematically abused his position” to pursue relationships with vulnerable women he met through policing. 

The Gazette launched a legal challenge after Mr Cooke claimed an anonymity order had been put in place to protect his identity and prohibit full details about his misconduct from being made public.

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However, after the paper launched legal proceedings, Mr Cooke’s solicitors revealed there was no such order in place. Mr Cooke’s representatives claimed it was a “genuine mistake”. 

At a High Court hearing on January 25 following ten months of exchanges, Justice Ellenbogan rejected Mr Cooke’s application for anonymity and approved the newspaper’s request to publish details of the former officer’s misconduct in the public interest. 

Now for the first time, the paper can report the policeman was sacked after he was found to have: 

• Used personal information gathered at the scenes of police incidents to contact vulnerable women he found “attractive” 
• Pursued a sexual relationship with a victim of domestic violence 
• Tried to add a second victim of domestic abuse on Facebook a number of times after being called to her home address 
• Asked the victim of a car crash out on a date and called her friend the next day to repeat the invitation

The hearing heard of four separate incidents where Mr Cooke was found to have breached the professional standards of behaviour.

An investigation into the officer was launched by the Independent Office for Police Conduct following a complaint about his behaviour. 

In one incident, after responding to a 999 call where a vulnerable domestic violence victim had called for help, Mr Cooke tracked down the woman on Facebook and messaged her afterwards. 

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The woman responding by saying: “Naughty, taking my number from police records to get hold of me, I don’t think you’re supposed to do that, laugh out loud.” He then pursued a sexual relationship with her. 

The hearing heard how the woman called the police after fearing for her safety when her ex-husband turned up at her home and started banging on the door.  

Mr Cooke arrived at the scene in his capacity as a police officer. Afterwards, he searched for her on Facebook and sent her a number of friend requests and a ‘wave’. The woman did not respond. 

PC Terry Cooke with officers from the Royal Bermuda Police

The misconduct panel said there was a “degree of persistence” about how the officer attempted to contact the woman. He admitted during the hearing that he found her “attractive” and wished to pursue a relationship with her. 

They noted: “The fact is that here again we find the officer abusing confidential information obtained in the course of police work to pursue a personal relationship with a vulnerable victim of domestic abuse.” 

On a third occasion, the Basingstoke officer was responding to a car crash where he asked one of the victims out on a date and told her to ‘look him up’ on Facebook. 

He recorded the woman’s Facebook username in his notebook and rang her friend the next day to remind her about his invitation for a date. 

Giving evidence at the hearing, the friend said: “I was embarrassed by this and giggled to brush off his approach.” 

Mr Cooke denied the woman’s version of events, but the panel rejected his evidence. 

The panel said: “The officer raised the subject of his desire to take her out and encouraged the [woman’s friend] to add him as a friend on Facebook and was at pains to emphasise the correct spelling of his surname.

“It was put to the woman that the ‘ball was entirely in her court’ as to whether she wished to take up his offer, which we accept, but the ball should simply never have been in play at all”.

The panel deemed Mr Cooke’s misconduct to be so serious that they ruled he should be sacked from Hampshire Constabulary without notice. 

In their judgement, they said: “The proven conductreveals a pattern of troubling behaviour on the part of the officer which we consider to be extremely serious misconduct.

“The officer came into contact with all these women in the course of his work as a police officer. He obtained their personal details and data in the course of his employment. He then systematically abused it for his own private purposes.

“He talked about the ‘chemistry’ that he felt when he had first encountered one woman having been called out to deal with a domestic disturbance rather than a job well done.

“He appears to have been intent on pursuing what he admitted were all attractive young women despite the obvious prohibition on him doing so. He repeatedly suggested in his evidence that he did not understand until after these events ‘the finer detail’ in relation to the prohibition on pursuing emotional relationships with vulnerable persons that he had come into contact within the course of his police work.

“We reject his claimed ignorance.

“We note that when one of the women said ‘naughty, naughty’, he immediately apologised, by all accounts profusely, knowing he had crossed a red line. It is of particular concern that two of the women were quite obviously vulnerable given their circumstances and there is absolutely no fuzziness about this line.

“As an experienced officer, this officer must have known and (we find) did know that he was venturing into forbidden territory in relation to his pursuit of these women. 

“We unhesitatingly reject the officer’s pleas of ignorance or lack of understanding. He has here embarked on a course of conduct which involved an abuse of trust and power.”

Continuing, the panel said: “The officer’s culpability is high and obvious. His conduct was intentional, deliberate, targeted, and planned.

“He has abused his position to pursue relationships with vulnerable women. He only has himself to blame. There is no suggestion of anything that might begin to explain, still less justify, his behaviour.”

They said they had noted barrister Alexandra Felix’s statement in defence of her client Mr Cooke which emphasised his “long service and the many good things he has done as well as the adverse effect that these proceedings have had on him”. 

Mr Cooke worked for Hampshire Constabulary for 20 years and was commended by chief constable Olivia Pinkney in 2017 for his deployment to help the British Virgin Islands in the wake of Hurricane Irma. 

But the panel said: “We have concluded that dismissal without notice is the only appropriate sanction. 

“No other sanction would be sufficient to maintain public confidence in the police service and uphold the reputation of the police service and the high standards that are reasonably expected of police officers by the public.”  

According to his public LinkedIn profile, the former officer now works as a security specialist and risk manager in Reading.

Mr Cooke has been contacted for comment but he did not respond before the Gazette went to print.

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