A former police officer who made “inappropriate sexual comments” to female colleagues has been found to have committed gross misconduct and placed on the barred list held by the College of Policing.
It means former PC 692 Ryan Rolfe – who joined Cambridgeshire police in 2020 at Huntingdon – cannot be employed by police, local policing bodies (PCC’s), the Independent Office for Police Conduct or His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.
A disciplinary hearing found Rolfe breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour in respect of Authority, Respect and Courtesy and Discreditable Conduct, amounting to gross misconduct.
The hearing, which concluded on 8 October, at Tempsford Hall in Sandy, decided that Rolfe would have been dismissed had he still been with the force.
He resigned as a police officer in May 2024.
(Below a feature on PC Rolfe from Civvy Street Magazine)
Chief Constable Nick Dean said: “As a police officer, Ryan Rolfe should have been upholding the high standards we expect of our officers and staff.
“There is no place for misogyny in our workplace.
“The actions of this one officer has the potential to dent public trust and confidence at a time when police forces are under immense scrutiny.
“This officer’s behaviour was not only in breach of professional standards, but also went completely against our force values.
“I would like to recognise the courage and professionalism of the victims who came forward to challenge his behaviour and report him to our professional standards department.”
A police force statement ahead of the hearing said the allegation against Rolfe was that between October 2021 and September 2022 he made “inappropriate sexual comments to female police officers whilst on duty”.
The misconduct panel heard claims that Rolfe “breached the following standard of professional behaviour: authority respect and courtesy and discreditable conduct”.
Rolfe is an army veteran and served between 2015 and 2019 but left for family reasons.
In a later magazine article, he said he joined the police because “I’ve got friends who are officers and my now brother-in-law is also a police officer. I was talking with those people to get more of an idea of what it was actually like to be a police officer”.
The same article explained that skills as a veteran were useful to serving police officers.
“Ex-service people have a lot of hazard perception and situational awareness,” he said.
“That comes in very useful, especially on response teams, where you’re going into live incidents where one moment, it can be calm as anything before the flight trigger then leads it to becoming a violent incident. We’re very good at picking up on that.
“I find that there’s a lot of respect for veterans on the job, because of what they’ve done previously and also, because they understand we have a lot of life experience.”
