Former West Mercia police officer to face trial for sexual abuse

A jury has been asked how a police officer sexually assaulted two women he met while on duty by inappropriately hugging and touching them both.

Former police officer Oliver Dines, 33, from Hereford, West Mercia, is accused of committing the offences on separate occasions while working in Herefordshire in 2020.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, these facts occurred approximately one month apart.

Mr Dines denies both charges and the trial at Worcester Crown Court continues.

Mr Dines, who lives in Tupsley, is alleged to have asked the first alleged victim if she was single and made comments about what she was wearing, before touching her bottom over her clothes during a “sensitive” hug, the court heard.

He is also said to have been guilty of “similar behavior” with a second woman. He is said to have groped her in her pants after taking a statement from her, the court heard.

Opening the case against Mr Dines on Monday, prosecutor Jonathan Stone told the jury: “He is here before this court because we allege he sexually assaulted two women while he was on duty as a police officer.”

Mr Stone claimed that “history repeated itself” when the second offence occurred, saying: “He asked for a hug. She said that hug wasn’t a standard hug… she froze.”

Concluding his opening address to the jury, Mr Stone told the jury that Mr Dines “denied that there had been any form of inappropriate hugging” with the first complainant.

He said in interviews that he had hugged the second woman, but that it was “again not intimate,” and that he had not touched her buttocks.

Mr Stone told the jury: “None of the complainants consented. They did not say yes and if they did consent in any way it was because they were subservient to the defendant, given his position of power in their eyes.”

In a video interview played on the first day of Mr Dines’ trial, the first alleged victim said: “I have never felt so vulnerable in my life.

“He gave me a kind of hug. You felt hands that were completely out of place. He made me feel like I wasn’t able to say yes or no.

“It was all just a nightmare.”