Inside ‘car sex’ trial of police officer Lee Cocking as To Catch a Copper lifts lid on the ‘real’ Line of Duty
DRUNK after a night out with pals, a Weston Super Mare clubber was relieved to be offered a lift by a police officer, who offered to see her safely home.
But a few days later, she called the police claiming the officer, Sergeant Lee Cocking, had taken advantage of her intoxicated state and had sex with her in a forest layby.
The distressed young woman told the female operator she felt “upset and disgusted” over the incident, in the early hours of Christmas Eve 2017.
But Sgt Cocking claimed she was the aggressor and had pinned him down and forced him to have sex against his will – and he was eventually acquitted in a criminal court.
The incident is one of many allegations featured in the new Channel 4 documentary, To Catch a Copper.
Filmmakers for the three-part series were given four years of fly-on-the-wall access to the Avon & Somerset Counter Corruption Unit (CCU) which internally investigates officers and could clear them or, if found guilty of misconduct, could end their careers.
Following the success of the BBC drama Line of Duty, the series, which starts tonight, shines a light on the real life equivalent of AC12.
It includes harrowing bodycam footage of cops’ often brutal treatment of members of the public, including a young woman in a mental health crisis who is handcuffed, masked and pepper-sprayed by callous officers.
In 2022, over 81,000 complaints were made against the police, with fewer than 1 per cent resulting in formal misconduct proceedings.
Chief Constable Sarah Crew tells The Sun she was happy to let the cameras in to show the reality of the challenges the force faces.
She says: “After Line Of Duty, I suppose it’s only right to show what this side of policing is really like. We’re dubbed the dark side by some officers, but we’re here to bring justice and maintain trust, no matter the cost to those that work with and around us.”
Sex claims
In the call which opened the case against Lee Cocking, heard in the programme, the young woman tells the operator: “I was so drunk so you’re not going to believe me.”
She goes on to say she was about to be arrested for being drunk and disorderly by a female officer when a male cop pulled up in a silver car and said he would take her home, adding: “I’ll sort her out.”
But she adds: “It was awful, I lost my shoe. We had sex on the toll road.
“I just feel like he took advantage of me. I feel upset and I feel disgusted about it. I can’t get over it.”
Having sex with a member of public while on duty is a criminal offence and can lead to a prison sentence.
In interview footage with Cocking, he tells investigating officers she removed her underwear and asked him to pull over, before straddling him and forcing herself on him.
“l’m sure if I’d really tried I could have forced her off but (I was) in shock. I stayed there and froze,” he said.
He also claimed he had PTSD caused by trauma earlier on in his career, telling the documentary: “When I finished therapy in 2015 I was told I should consider other lines of work but I wanted to be normal and to me normality was going back to the job I was doing before.”
After almost four years suspended on full pay, he was separately cleared by a jury in a two-week criminal trial.
The CCU then pressed to carry on with misconduct charges but were thwarted when he was granted a medical retirement with full pension.
Pepper spray ‘torture’
In the most shocking footage of episode one, two officers are called to help a young woman who has climbed on to the Clifton Suspension Bridge in what looks like a potential suicide.
Instead of being sympathetic to the woman, who is clearly suffering from severe mental health issues, the female officer is seen handcuffing her, grabbing her hair and putting her on the ground.
In distressing scenes, the woman screams “get off my f***ing throat”, while one officer continually threatens to “Pava” – or pepper spray – her.
They also put her in a spit hood in the car and when the distraught woman continues to shout, they use pepper spray directly in her face – not from a metre away as regulations state – causing her skin to burn.
The officer then taunts the girl saying: “What are you crying about? Is it burning?”, before asking her colleague, “Is this a good time to pick up a tandoori?”
Footage also shows the pair forcibly removing the woman’s clothes as she struggles on the floor of the station, as she screams “they’re raping me.”
And the female officer is heard boasting: “I told you I was going to Pava someone tonight”.
Jon Owen, the unit’s mental health lead, was horrified by the footage and says the young woman was probably suffering a personality disorder brought on by earlier trauma.
He says: “Where was the kindness? It’s hostile, it’s aggressive. I’m ashamed.”
Mark Loker, the chair of Avon and Somerset Police Federation, says: “This is the worst misconduct I’ve ever seen. How can anyone with a reasonable mind say that any part of this is acceptable? This young woman is clearly in crisis.
“She deserves to be treated fairly and kindly. There is a level of malevolence and they dehumanise her. That’s the hardest part for me. They don’t treat her like a human being.”
The case was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) but both officers resigned before misconduct proceedings could be brought against them.
And while the IOPC said the allegations against them amount to criminal actions, it decided not to go to Crown Prosecution Service because the victim has made no formal complaint.
Sarah Crew says the bodycam footage made her feel “ashamed and really quite worried.”
She adds: “These incidents hurt me, some of them, when I see them. They don’t stand for the people that I’ve worked with for 29 years and the effort they put in, and their dedication and commitment.
“I feel angry, and I feel distressed by it and I’m sure the public and my colleagues will too.
“But it’s really important to be open and transparent about the things that go wrong.”
Bleed in the brain
Further episodes also reveal the case of a young man arrested in Bristol in stop and search, then allegedly assaulted and strip-searched after being racially profiled.
Another young man being brought into custody complaining of head and neck pain and confusion – symptoms of a bleed in the brain – is denied medical help and then vomits and collapses in the cell, with an ambulance only called three hours later.
None of the officers involved in any of the cases ended up facing misconduct hearings, leaving the force instead.
But Sarah insists that there are a few “bad apples”, rather than a systemic problem in the police.
“Policing is difficult but people who really do wrong, in the scale of things, are a small number,” she says. “But when they are, it needs to be found soon because they’re undermining the confidence and the reputation of all those good colleagues.
“I’m still in policing after 29 years because I work with some brilliant, amazing people who, when we’re asleep and safe in our beds at night, are out there on the streets putting their lives at risk, running towards danger and facing the really dark side of the human condition.
“It’s really important that they’re not tarnished by the misdeeds of a minority, who undermine the trust and confidence of the public in the majority. “
To Catch a Copper airs on Channel 4 from tonight