A married PSCO today confessed to sleeping with one woman up to TEN TIMES while he was supposed to be on uniform foot patrol.
Peter Bunyan, 40, admitted wasting police time, but insisted he had not neglected his duty because he kept his radio on.
Father-of-two Bunyan is said to have conducted illicit affairs with five women he met on his beat with Devon and Cornwall police.
He denies 12 charges of misconduct in a public office but conceded that he had been “negligent” in failing to attend to his duty.
Bunyan said that most of the affairs were carried out before, during or after his shift and had never got in the way of his duty.
But he admitted at Taunton Crown Court to sleeping with one lover up to 10 times while he was supposed to be on daytime foot patrol in her neighbourhood.
Bunyan described how 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.
He 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.”
He claimed: “I never turned my radio down, on the occasion when someone did call I would answer it and leave straight away. I would attend all calls when required.
“There was never a time when I ignored my radio.
“I accept that by being in the house I was failing to do my duty and not attending to my duties, but I always answered my radio.
“For most occasions I wouldn’t have had my radio on me because I was not in uniform and not on duty, it would have been back at the station.”
Bunyan agreed that over the course of the affairs there were times he failed to correctly fill in police notebooks and records and even days which were left blank.
He is also accused of using the Criminal Information System to research his lovers – one up to 17 times – and obtain their mobile phone records.
But he told the court he had never used the database to conduct “welfare checks” on vulnerable women or take numbers from the files and use them to start a relationship.
He added that if his searches were related to women he was having affairs with he would immediately hand them to a superior officer to handle.
Bunyan admitted keeping a secret mobile phone hidden at the station which he used to organise meetings with the women and often used on duty.
But he denied any wrongdoing with the mobile phone.
Bunyan, a former car park worker who is currently suspended by Devon and Cornwall police, denied being in full uniform when conducting the affairs with all five women.
He said on most occasions he visited them before or after work when he was casually dressed and his uniform was at his base.
Bunyan joined Devon and Cornwall police in 2003 and worked as a PCSO in Redruth and Camborne in Cornwall.
He is alleged to have struck up sexual relationships with five women, who cannot be named for legal reasons, between 2006 and 2011.
He has admitted bedding one of the women at a local policing unit at an estate in Cornwall in 2009 as he was working the late shift.
Trial continues.
