A married PCSO was today found guilty of misconduct after he slept with four vulnerable women while he was supposed to be on uniformed patrol.
Peter Bunyan, 40, used the police database as a “dating agency” by tracking down phone numbers and addresses of attractive women on his beat.
Father-of-two Bunyan had affairs with the women before and during his policing shift – sleeping with one lover up to ten times when he was on duty.
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He even bedded one woman at a neighbourhood policing unit as he worked a late shift on a housing estate in Cornwall in 2009.
Bunyan admitted wasting police time but insisted he had not neglected his duty because he kept his radio on during the trysts while working for Devon and Cornwall police.
The former car park worker denied 12 charges of misconduct in a public office but was found guilty of eight counts following a three week trial at Taunton Crown Court.
He was convicted of sleeping with four women and illegally accessing data relating to three lovers on the Criminal Information System.
Bunyan, who joined Devon and Cornwall police in 2003, was also found guilty of accessing the system to look up the details of a man without reason.
The jury acquitted Bunyan of having an affair with a fifth woman and falsely borrowing money from her, as well as looking up the woman and two others on the police computer.
Bunyan, of Redruth, Cornwall, remained emotionless as the verdicts were returned at Taunton Crown Court yesterday (mon).
His honour Judge Graham Hume Jones remanded disgraced Bunyan in custody following his convictions.
The judge said: “I will sentence this matter on Tuesday. In the meantime you will be remanded in custody. You may go down now.”
Bunyan stated his affairs never got in the way of his duty but admitted to sleeping with one lover up to 10 when he was supposed to be on patrol.
He said his beat would take him past the address of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and he repeatedly called in to continue their affair.
Bunyan told the jury: “I tended to see her during the day time. I was on duty a lot of the time.
“I would have been in full uniform with my radio on, I was supposed to be on foot patrol. I was not taking advantage of my position, I don’t feel I was doing that at all.
“I would not say I was abusing my position but I was not doing what I should have been doing.
“I admit was wasting police time and being negligent and not attending to my duty.”
Bunyan admitted that over the course of the affairs, between 2006 and 2011, he failed to correctly fill in police notebooks and records – leaving some days blank.
The court heard how he researched his lovers using the Criminal Information System – one up to 17 times – to find out their mobile phone numbers and pasts.
Bunyan, who worked as a PCSO in Redruth and Camborne, Cornwall, even kept a secret mobile phone hidden at the police station, which he used to organise liaisons with lovers while on duty.
During the trial, Bunyan denied being in uniform while sleeping with all his lovers – who were described as “vulnerable” and cannot be named for legal reasons.
Devon and Cornwall police suspended Bunyan when an investigation into his conduct was launched in 2011.
Judge Graham Hume Jones will sentence Bunyan at the court today (Tues).
