A female police officer who assaulted two colleagues during a drunken party has been fired.
PC Pamela Pritchard, 29, put her hand in a male colleague twice and then got on his knee and kissed him, after they drank at a leaving do at Caernarfon Rugby Club, Gwynedd, in March 2024.
The North Wales Police officer also grabbed a female colleague’s breast after “twerking” on the dance floor, and later tried to kiss a senior colleague.
The panel at a misconduct hearing in Colwyn Bay, Conwy, found that all allegations against her were proven and that she had breached the force’s standards of conduct.
PC Pritchard, who joined North Wales Police as a trainee in 2023, admitted her drunken behavior was inappropriate, but denied it was gross misconduct.
She previously told the hearing that she was “stopped” when she saw footage of herself on CCTV, and remembered very little of what happened at the party on 29 March 2024.
The four-day hearing was told that PC Pritchard was one of a large number of police officers who went to the colleague’s leaving party.
Among them was PC Pritchard and another male officer, identified at the hearing as “Police Constable B”.
PC B told the hearing on Monday that he and another female colleague were in the bar with PC Pritchard when “out of the blue, PC Pritchard grabbed me below the belt and put her hand on my genitals outside my clothes”.
He said: “At no point was it appropriate – I felt kind of humiliated at that point.”
He added that she did the same again later when a group of officers went outside to the smoking area.
“She grabbed my genitals outside my clothes and I distinctly remember squeezing them.”
PC Pritchard admitted her drunken behavior was inappropriate, but denied it was gross misconduct [Facebook]
At approximately 22:00 BST, PC Pritchard came back to PC B and got down on his knee.
“I remember her putting her hand around my neck and kissing me on the lips,” he said.
“It was inappropriate – this was in public. Her behavior was becoming increasingly unacceptable.”
The hearing was shown CCTV from the rugby club showing PC Pritchard “twerking” on the dance floor in a series of suggestive dance moves.
A female police officer, identified to the hearing only as “Police Constable A,” said: “PC Pritchard came up from behind me, put both her arms around my neck, then put them under my armpits and grabbed my breasts and squeezed them.”
PC Pritchard apologized to PC A when he gave evidence to the hearing earlier this week.
She said: “My behavior that evening was inappropriate, I’ve never acted like that before.
“I’m absolutely mortified by what happened – I don’t recognize the person I see on that CCTV – all I can do is apologise.”
She burst into tears as she said: “I feel that I have left the police, I have left myself and I have left my family”.
She said she had “panics and nightmares” and felt that “people thought I was a sexual predator”.
The board’s chairman, Assistant Chief Constable Chris Allsop, said on Thursday that “all allegations against PC Pritchard have been found to be proven”.
“In general, the panel finds that the breach of the standards is of medium to high seriousness which may warrant dismissal as gross misconduct,” he said.
Solicitor Fiona Clancy, representing PC Pritchard, had argued that she should be allowed to keep her police job.
“She accepts that her behavior was unacceptable. This was a short-lived, short-lived episode, and there is no risk of it happening again.
“PC Pritchard has been doing voluntary work while awaiting this hearing, and has maintained her fitness levels – there is genuine motivation to continue serving the community.”