A domestic abuse survivor has told Sky News how a police officer took advantage of her vulnerability when he had sex with her in a women’s refuge while on duty.
Shannon Mulhall was distressed and vulnerable when she called the police and was taken to a place that should have been a sanctuary.
But one of the officers sent to protect her would go on to strip naked in her refuge and make sexual advances.
Disgraced Humberside Police officer PC Simon Miller now faces years in jail after admitting the improper exercise of policing powers, and becomes the latest in a line of police officers who’ve brought shame to their uniform and dented trust in the police.
Ms Mulhall, who has chosen to waive her right to anonymity, has spoken exclusively to Sky News about her ordeal.
“He took advantage of my vulnerability,” she says. “He took advantage of the fact that I was alone with no support and nobody I could turn to and ask for help.
“This was a police officer on duty meant to protect me and now he is naked in my refuge.”
Frightened, and in a fragile state of mind, Ms Mulhall had sex with him.
She says she felt “disgusted”, and initially worried about contacting the police because she thought they wouldn’t believe her. Eventually she found the courage to put it all in an email.
“It’s a relief that everybody else now knows what he is and what he has done,” Ms Mulhall says. “He attacked me when I was at my lowest.”
She spoke out as the government announced that officers who are found guilty of gross misconduct will face automatic dismissal.
Miller, 53, has already been dismissed from the force and has been told he will face a “significant period in custody” when he is sentenced later this month. The maximum sentence for the offence is 14 years imprisonment.
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The court heard how Ms Mulhall went to a church in Scunthorpe in June 2021 and called 999. She had previously been the victim of violence and described herself as “clinically depressed”.
She told police she was going to kill herself. PC Miller was one of the responding officers and she was taken to a mental health unit at a nearby hospital.
The officer began messaging Ms Mulhall while she was in hospital, and later asked her if they could continue communicating on Snapchat because he “didn’t want his boss to find out”.
Miller offered to transport Ms Mulhall to a women’s refuge so she could pick up some clothes. He escorted her in, turned off his police radio and camera, and the pair had sex, the court was told.
Judge John Thackray KC said Miller, who was nearly double Ms Mulhall’s age, knew that she was a vulnerable person and deliberately took advantage of that.
The officer sent her pictures of him in his underwear and bombarded her with several sexually suggestive messages and pictures.
Lawyer Kevin Donoghue, who represents Ms Mulhall and specialises in abuse cases against the police, told Sky News that his caseload had dramatically increased.
“We’re getting several a week, whereas a few years ago we would get maybe one every few months,” he says.
He said women were more confident to come forward after the cases of killer police officer Wayne Couzens and rapist David Carrick, and the victims are doing it for other women.
“These officers can come around with the protection they have as police officers and they abuse that to find their way in,” Mr Donoghue says.
“It can take place over months and start with an apparent mistake of a kiss at the end of a text message developing more fully as the week and months go by into full sexual intercourse, sending nude images, and things like that.
“And it is done in a very underhand, very creepy way. And to me that is planned, it is premeditated and sadistic.”
Ms Mulhall says she needed to come forward, not for her own protection, but for others. That appears to be a growing trend – since the shocking murder of Sarah Everard by Couzens, and the unmasking of Carrick as a serial abuser and rapist, more women are finding the courage to report the crimes of officers.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK