A former police officer has been found guilty of five counts of sexual assault and 15 counts of misconduct in a public office.
The charges relating to PC Adnan Ali relate to incidents between 2015 and 2019, involving young men and women on Greater Manchester Police’s Volunteer Police Cadet Scheme.
Ali was arrested and suspended in October 2018, after Greater Manchester Police (GMP) received a complaint that he had been behaving inappropriately towards a 16-year-old boy, the court was told.
Following the charges, GMP said it was continuing action to “ensure predatory employees are rooted and booted out”.
Electronic devices were seized upon his arrest, with officers uncovering thousands of messages and identifying further victims whose evidence was used to secure the charges which were authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service in July 2021.
Though Ali will be sentenced at a later date, Greater Manchester Police’s Chief Constable dismissed Ali and ordered that he be barred from policing, when gross misconduct was proven in April 2022.
Following today’s conviction, the force will suggest to the Deputy Mayor that Ali should be ordered to forfeit his pension.
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Assistant Chief Constable Colin McFarlane said: “Whilst Ali is responsible for committing these crimes, no one should be subjected to crime or misconduct during their contact with police officers and staff, like these young people were – for that, and in acknowledgement that Ali could have been better supervised and managed, we are sorry.”
He added that the case prompted a full review of GMP’s Volunteer Police Cadet Scheme, and “improvements are continuing to be implemented to ensure cadet leaders are the role models they are expected to be and that they do not pose a risk to anyone”.
Head of GMP’s Professional Standards Branch, Chief Superintendent Mike Allen said: “Today’s verdict will do nothing to ease the public’s concerns about police misconduct.
He said that Ali represents the “very worst and the minority in policing – he is among a very small percentage who discredit the police service and undermine trust and confidence in it”.
“These individuals are being rooted and booted out by exemplary colleagues reporting their behaviour, investigating allegations, building cases against them, and playing a crucial role in proceedings to ensure they face the full force of the criminal justice system and have the many privileges of working in policing taken from them,” he added.
