Copyright standard
A Metropolitan Police officer who worked at Charing Cross police station was secretly filmed allegedly "trivialising and mocking" a complainant's allegation of rape, a tribunal has heard. The undercover footage, which was aired on a BBC Panorama programme, showed Sergeant Clayton Robinson saying "I've got to be honest, I've gone to bed before and can't remember taking my trousers off" after another officer told him about a rape allegation in which a woman said she woke up without trousers on and did not remember taking them off, a misconduct hearing was told. He also sang part of the Oompa Loompa song from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory after saying a suspect could be identified if they were "orange with green hair", the tribunal heard. Stephen Morley, representing the Metropolitan Police, told the tribunal Sergeant Robinson had "trivialised and mocked the complainant's allegation". Mr Morley said that by "trivialising a serious sexual offence", Sergeant Robinson "failed to treat members of the public with respect and undermined the public's confidence in the police". Sergeant Robinson denies breaching the force's standards of professional behaviour. Asked by his barrister Heather Oliver whether he had sought to trivialise the complainant's report, he said: "No, I would never do that. "I don't have those values, I don't. I would never trivialise an incident like that. I just wouldn't." The officer was also recorded speaking with another Sergeant about the alleged rape. In the police's rape investigation, two people had been arrested and were in custody, with unedited footage from the BBC showing a discussion about this between Sergeant Robinson and the arresting officer. Sergeant Robinson told the hearing he had been concerned that one of the detainees had been wrongfully arrested. He said he had been questioning the officer in the case "to make sure there are grounds to keep this person in custody". Sergeant Robinson told the hearing: "I think inside of me there was a bit of frustration about how it had been investigated so far." After the arresting officer left, covert filming by a BBC reporter recorded Sergeant Robinson saying to another Sergeant: "She's woken up momentarily and there's someone humping her and then passed out again. And that's all she's got", Tuesday's hearing was told. The complainant previously said there had been a number of people in the vicinity, and Sergeant Robinson said: "She has given some description, hasn't she?", before adding "I mean, one of them might be orange with green hair and obviously it's him." The other Sergeant said: "like an Oompa Loompa?", the tribunal heard, to which Sergeant Robinson replied: "yeah", laughed and began singing part of the Oompa Loompa song. Mr Morley argued at the fast-tracked misconduct hearing in central London that this further "trivialised and mocked" the complainant's account. But Sergeant Robinson told chairman Commander Andy Brittain he had not been mocking anyone and had been "frustrated" at what he perceived to be wrongdoings in the alleged rape investigation. "I could just see things were not going the way that I'd expect them to go, I'm getting quite annoyed at things not going as they should," he told the hearing. "It's just frustration, I've just thrown an example in the air and wondered if they're going to get anything else wrong... it's something I've used just as a rough comparison of where things can go wrong... I'm not mocking anyone, I'm certainly not mocking a victim here." Asked if he was informed by a "hostility towards women" when he made the comments, Sergeant Robinson said: "I'm outraged at the suggestion. I've been in this job for 27 plus years and I have a very strong conscience and I'm very proud of my integrity." He became visibly upset and added: "I am absolutely disgusted that I am here being accused of this." The hearing continues.
