For years, Catherine Dobson believed she had no one to turn to. The man who terrorised her was a serving detective in a sexual offences unit, and one question haunted her: who would believe her over him? “Who is going to believe me over a detective on the sex offenders’ unit?” she asked. It took six years after leaving him before she filed a police report.
Catherine, from Rawtenstall in Lancashire, met Michael Harvey by chance in a supermarket, where he asked her out for a drink. Her trust, she says, rested entirely on his job. “The only reason I trusted him was because he told me he was a detective in the police,” she said. “We got on really well: this was a man who was paid to look after the most vulnerable in society, women and children who’d been abused, so that made me feel safe.”
Additional reference context is available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckr5y20n96jdo.
What she could not have known was that Harvey had already used police computer systems to obtain her address and phone number. The relationship soured early. She grew suspicious when he refused to introduce her to his children or let her post pictures of them together. When she found he had been texting other women, he explained they were victims of sexual offences he was investigating, and she had no reason to disbelieve him. “At the time I backed off because who am I to stop a victim of a crime like that from being supported by the officer?”
When she tried to end the relationship, the psychological abuse deepened. He claimed he had been abused as a child and later made unfounded claims he had been tested for cancer. “I believed him,” she said. “I felt responsible for keeping him well.” She now sees it as a pattern of emotional manipulation designed to stop her leaving. He threatened to take his own life if she left, including once during a phone call while she was at work. “I called the police immediately, then I drove back to the house and I was in bits,” she said. “I honestly thought I’d open the door and find him dead. The police were there and they were just about to bash the door in when he calmly opened it wrapped in a towel and he said, ‘What’s the problem officer? I’ve just been in the shower’. I felt like this hysterical mess who’d made the whole thing up. But when you’re in it, you’re not thinking straight.”
Over years of emotional blackmail, she says, he faked an anaphylactic shock and threatened to jump out of a moving car. Harvey was arrested in 2023 and jailed earlier this year, sentenced to two-and-a-half years after admitting coercive and controlling behaviour and the unauthorised use of police computers. He was cleared of three counts of rape. Lancashire Constabulary called his behaviour “abhorrent” and said it had “no place in policing”, adding that it remained committed to protecting women and girls. The BBC understands another woman had complained about Harvey before he met Catherine but was told he had not committed an offence; the force declined to comment, citing an ongoing complaints process.
Catherine’s story is one of two told in a BBC investigation into police-perpetrated abuse, which uncovered more than 1,200 domestic abuse allegations made in three years against police officers and special constables across England and Wales. The other woman is Naomi Meadows from Exeter, who met Devon and Cornwall PC Stuart Mines on a dating website. After a dog walk, he invited her back to his home for Sunday lunch. She quickly felt uncomfortable: he smacked her backside and repeatedly talked about being a police officer and the authority that came with the role. “I felt intimidated,” she said. “I felt scared. Then things just went from bad to worse, he raped me.” She was too frightened to leave. “Physically he was bigger than me and he obviously had all this power because he was a police officer. His uniform was hanging up and he had all his badges on. You just do what you can to survive, I guess.”
Naomi stayed silent for months. “I didn’t trust the police to investigate it because he was one of their own,” she said. Mines was eventually arrested, convicted of rape and jailed for eight years. But her ordeal continued. A professional standards investigation upheld complaints about how Devon and Cornwall Police handled her case, concluding it was “not acceptable”. She was never told Mines had been suspended, and he continued to be paid for a month after his conviction. “So I stayed in my house for months because I worried he’d be walking the streets,” she said, adding that she received no victim care support because the file was restricted. The force acknowledged the failings, said lessons had been learned and that additional safeguards had been introduced for victims of police-perpetrated abuse.
The wider picture is stark. Freedom of Information requests sent to 45 forces in England and Wales drew responses from just over half, disclosing 1,280 cases investigated by professional standards departments in the three years to January, including rape, sexual assault, coercive control, stalking and non-fatal strangulation. Most concluded cases resulted in no further action, including 96% in the North West. Former Merseyside PC Ryan Theaker was jailed earlier this month for 11 years after an 82-minute ordeal in a Liverpool hotel room during which his victim told him to “get off me” more than 300 times. Nearly half of the 1,280 cases were recorded by the Metropolitan Police, where dozens of officers were accused of rape or other sexual offences.
Campaigners argue the figures show forces have still not confronted the problem, despite repeated warnings since the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard by serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens. Bridie Anderson, a former officer who now supports victims, said abusers present a very different face to the world than the one survivors see, and that police perpetrators enjoy immediate credibility with colleagues and the public. The Women Against Rape group said the investigation raises serious questions about whether lessons have been learned, noting that victims must report allegations to the very force employing the alleged perpetrator. Chief Constable Chris Todd, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for professional standards, said forces recognise the “devastating impact” of these crimes and have strengthened vetting, increased dismissals for gross misconduct and are determined to remove officers who should not be in policing.
Both women waived their anonymity to speak out. For Naomi, the decision was not about herself but about “what needs to change”. “The people with the means to change these things need to listen to what we’ve had to go through and the little support we’ve had,” she said. For Catherine, the damage endures. “It changed me as a person,” she said. “I’ve never been the same since.” Of Harvey, she added: “He used his job, he used his power and he abused the badge. Whatever his motives were, I will never understand.”
Whether the safeguards now promised by forces reach the next woman who finds herself in Catherine’s or Naomi’s position remains the question both women are asking.