This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

A police inspector has been sacked after a panel found him guilty of gross misconduct for having sex with vulnerable women, including a victim of hate crime and an offender who had been issued with a caution.

Anthony Lumb – an officer with 27 years’ experience with Sussex police – was dismissed from the force after a hearing that he had asked to be held in private. This request would have meant that details of the allegations against him would have been kept from the public.

Clare Harrington, who chaired the panel, said: “We are without doubt that his conduct does amount to gross misconduct.

“His behaviour fell well below the standards which are rightly to be expected of officers generally and also those of his rank.”

Lumb was accused of engaging in sex while on duty with five women, and the panel found accusations proven in respect of four of those cases.

Nicola Brookes, 52, waived her right to anonymity. She has Crohn’s disease and met Lumb after being the victim of a disability hate crime, the panel was told.

She welcomed Lumb’s dismissal but will continue to pursue a civil claim against Sussex police. She told PA Media: “It has been a long, painful three years. I knew I was right. I feel like I was the one who has been on trial for three years. For me it goes on so I haven’t got closure yet.”

Harrington said of Brookes and another woman that “it was readily apparent, and would have been so to … Lumb, that these two women were vulnerable at the time of [his] relationships with them”.

Ch Supt Lisa Bell, head of Sussex police’s professional standards department, said: “We expect the highest possible standards of our officers and staff and we take any report of inappropriate behaviour extremely seriously.

“Tony Lumb’s behaviour is a violation of the trust that the public put in the police to serve and protect them.”

Sarah Green, director at the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “Police officers are in a unique position of trust and of necessity work closely with women at times when they are vulnerable.

“Mr Lumb’s predatory conduct shames him and his force. We need a strong message of zero tolerance of this behaviour from police leaders.”