The events that gave rise to the current trial at Bristol Crown Court trace back to 2018, when Pc Fiona Anderson, a serving officer with Devon and Cornwall Police based in Exeter, travelled to Cardiff while off duty. It was during that visit that the two alleged incidents of sexual assault are said to have occurred — incidents that would remain unreported for nearly five years.
On the night in question, Pc Anderson was described in court as “disgustingly drunk”. According to the prosecution’s opening, she began kissing and biting the complainant, growing progressively rougher, before removing the woman’s underwear. The alleged victim told her plainly, “I don’t want to have sex with you.” Pc Anderson, the jury heard, was not taking no for an answer.
What followed, prosecutors allege, crossed what Emma Martin, counsel for the prosecution, described as the line “from one-sided sexual advance to sexual offending.”
Most striking among the prosecution’s claims was the remark Pc Anderson allegedly made at the time: “I know the law, I need you to say yes.” The alleged victim, the court heard, was physically not reciprocating at all. Prosecutors contend that Pc Anderson then performed oral sex on the woman without her consent. A second allegation involves Pc Anderson touching the complainant’s vagina while she was not consenting.
The complainant said nothing to police for years. Ms Martin told the jury that the woman felt she “could not turn to anyone” precisely because her alleged assailant was a serving police officer — an institutional dimension that, the prosecution implied, compounded the harm done.
The matter came to light only in March 2023, and then only by chance. The alleged victim was at a pub with friends when an unrelated incident occurred. A police constable present noticed that something was visibly wrong with the woman, and it was through that conversation that she finally disclosed what Pc Anderson had allegedly done to her five years earlier.
Pc Anderson was arrested and bailed shortly afterwards. Devon and Cornwall Police suspended her from duty. In a video interview played to the court, the alleged victim described her reaction at the time of the assault: “I just froze because I felt that I communicated enough that I wasn’t interested, but she couldn’t let it go. I just couldn’t believe that was happening. She was getting pleasure from it, and I wasn’t.” She told officers she had struggled to understand and get past what happened.
Pc Anderson, now 33, denies both counts of sexual assault. Her memory of the evening, the court was told, is “a bit fuzzy.”
The alleged victim is due to give evidence from the witness stand when the trial resumes. The proceedings are listed to run for four days in total and continue before Bristol Crown Court.