{"id":203177,"date":"2026-07-02T06:48:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T06:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2026\/07\/02\/woman-given-met-payout-regrets-reporting-officer\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T06:48:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T06:48:05","slug":"woman-given-met-payout-regrets-reporting-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2026\/07\/02\/woman-given-met-payout-regrets-reporting-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman given Met payout regrets reporting officer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A woman groomed by a predatory Met Police officer says despite receiving a substantial payout from the force, she has not had “truth or accountability” from them.<\/b><\/p>\n

Lorraine – not her real name – said the “nine-year battle to be believed has been horrendous, far worse than anything he put me through” and she regretted reporting him.<\/p>\n

The Met has apologised and accepted her experience with the Professional Standards unit had compounded her distress.<\/p>\n

Her experience was among those highlighted by Baroness Casey in her scathing review of the Met in 2023, which said the force was “institutionally misogynistic”. The force said it was working to improve its culture.<\/p>\n

Lorraine met former PC Phil Hunter when he made a welfare visit to her home in 2017. He was found guilty of gross misconduct at a disciplinary panel in August 2024.<\/p>\n

The panel heard that, over a period of two years, he sent her inappropriate messages and tried to isolate her from friends and family as part of a “deliberate” and “predatory” plan to have a sexual relationship with her.<\/p>\n

When Hunter retired in 2019, he was under investigation for a case involving another vulnerable woman he had met during a welfare visit and with whom he had started a sexual relationship.<\/p>\n

He was found guilty of gross misconduct a year later for his behaviour towards her.<\/p>\n

Although the Met’s directorate of professional standards (DPS) were aware Hunter had already targeted another victim in similar circumstances, Lorraine’s complaints were ignored.<\/p>\n

“The first officers I spoke to said that police predators only exist in the mind of Daily Mail readers,” she said. “That lots of officers meet partners in that way and that there was absolutely nothing to it.”<\/p>\n

In 2023, Lorraine’s experience was highlighted among the case studies in the damning review by Baroness Casey, which said she had been “traumatised” by both PC Hunter and her treatment by the DPS.<\/p>\n

The report called for urgent reforms to an “institutionally misogynist” force, including within the misconduct system, and said Lorraine’s case should be reviewed. <\/p>\n

In August 2024, a disciplinary panel finally took place, but only after the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) intervened and recommended the Met should hold one. <\/p>\n

Hunter, who was described as a “sexual predator who used his position to take advantage of vulnerable women”, was found guilty of gross misconduct for a second time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Lorraine has now received a “substantial financial settlement” from the force.<\/p>\n

But she still wanted to know why it had taken so long for her complaints about him to be taken seriously. <\/p>\n

In March 2025, she received a letter from the DPS, apologising for “a series of failings” over a seven-year period. <\/p>\n

It admitted her initial allegations had not been recorded and decisions may have been influenced by the belief Lorraine was suffering from mental health issues, which it conceded “did not have basis in fact”. <\/p>\n

“Victim-blaming has occurred towards you by members of the Metropolitan Police,” it acknowledged. <\/p>\n

The DPS letter said inaccurate information recorded about Lorraine on police systems had been shared with others and defamatory information about her was passed by a third party to her GP.<\/p>\n

When Lorraine asked for the DPS to investigate the actions of officers, she discovered she had been labelled internally as a “fixated complainant”. <\/p>\n

The term is understood to be a reference to someone who makes persistent or vexatious complaints. <\/p>\n

“You couldn’t make it up,” says Lorraine. “They described me as a ‘fixated complainant’ because I asked for what Baroness Casey had asked them to do.<\/p>\n

“They have gone ahead and tried to discredit me again, so it shows that the culture hasn’t changed at all.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In October 2025, the IOPC partially upheld a review into how the Met had handled Lorraine’s complaints and found the service she received in response to some of them had been unacceptable. <\/p>\n

However, it said no further action was required by the force due to the amount of time that had passed and a lack of evidence. <\/p>\n

An IOPC spokesperson said: “We were aware that the complainant subsequently received several written apologies from senior officers within the Met, and the failings she encountered had been acknowledged. We found this was a reasonable outcome to her complaint.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sophie Naftalin, a solicitor at Bhatt Murphy who acts for Lorraine, says her case highlights the “Kafkaesque nature of the misconduct system and how it’s failing victims”.<\/p>\n

“Lorraine has utilised every mechanism: she’s appealed to the IOPC, she’s received apologies from very senior officers who have confirmed to her that her treatment was completely unacceptable,” Naftalin says.<\/p>\n

“But what has evaded her is seeing any other officer other than Hunter actually be held individually accountable for those failures. <\/p>\n

“When she continued to pursue those mechanisms, she herself was labelled a fixated complainant and made to feel that it was her problem, rather than the Metropolitan Police’s problem.” <\/p>\n

Lorraine says she still has not seen the accountability she wants, but she feared “the risk of financial ruin” if she continued to pursue her case. <\/p>\n

“I’d made it clear from the start that it wasn’t the money I was interested in. I wanted the truth,” she says. <\/p>\n

“They could have just told me what went wrong, but to this day, I don’t know what exactly went wrong and why they tried to discredit me, and I don’t know why no other officer has faced any misconduct charge.” <\/p>\n

For years, she says she had felt “a sense of shame… both for being a victim and for reporting it in the first place.”<\/p>\n

“But I’ve begun to realise that the shame isn’t mine,” she adds. “It belongs with the predator officer. <\/p>\n

“It lies with the people who didn’t believe me. It lies with a system that is so flawed that these things are allowed to carry on.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A Met Police spokesperson said: “We have apologised to the victim for the completely unacceptable behaviour of this former officer in 2017. We also accept that her experience with our Professional Standards unit has compounded her distress.<\/p>\n

“As an organisation, we are committed to supporting victims and we are constantly working to improve the Met’s culture, raise standards and rebuild confidence in the force.”<\/p>\n

The force added its professional standards team now took a “far more victim-centred approach around police-perpetrated abuse”.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has previously pointed to the record number of rogue officers being brought before the courts and disciplinary tribunals as proof the culture of the Met is changing, calling it “the strongest doubling down on standards for 50 years”.<\/p>\n

Lorraine acknowledges that more officers are being dismissed. <\/p>\n

“But until they root out the officers within the Met who enable this behaviour, nothing is going to change,” she says. <\/p>\n

“They need to root out the officers that don’t believe the victims, that don’t support the victims.” <\/p>\n

Lorraine adds she wants to believe in the promises to reform the force and has always insisted she supports the police. <\/p>\n

“But they haven’t done any better at all, not in the slightest,” she says. “Because everything that’s happened to me, the worst parts have been in the three years since Baroness Casey’s report.” <\/p>\n

She says if someone approached her asking for advice for reporting a predatory officer, she would not be able to encourage them to do so. <\/p>\n

“I would try, where possible, to get them the support they need, but external to the Metropolitan Police. I would tell them not to report it. It’s genuinely not worth doing.” <\/p>\n

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on <\/i>Sounds<\/i> and follow BBC London on <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, external<\/span>, <\/i>X<\/i>, external<\/span><\/a> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>, external<\/span>. Send your story ideas to <\/i>hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk<\/i>, external<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n