A disgraced former Staffordshire Police Sex Offender officer, Owen Mills, faces the possibility of incarceration for engaging in a sexual relationship with a vulnerable lady. In 2023, Staffordshire Police initiated an investigation by the professional standards department and suspended Owen Mills on the revelation of the relationship.
The 22-year-old, Owen Mills, had also established a relationship with a witness.
The former police officer has been summoned to Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court and has confessed to two charges of the unlawful exercise of police authority.
Owen Mills, a 22-year-old former Staffordshire Police officer, pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonest or illegal exercise of police powers and privileges during his appearance at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.
The Staffordshire Police have expressed approval of the guilty pleas.
Deputy Chief Constable Becky Riggs said: “Owen Mills misused his position to engage in inappropriate relationships with people he met through his work, including a vulnerable woman. This is a serious breach of trust and police values. The fact that he admitted the offences showed the strength of the evidence.
“We have done extensive training with our officers about improper and inappropriate relationships and encourage our officers and staff to report such behaviours to the professional standards department, including mechanisms to report anonymously. The large majority of our officers, staff, and volunteers are professional, dedicated individuals who act with integrity and work hard to keep their communities safe.”
Owen Mills is currently living in Cornwall. It is possible that the sentencing hearing will be held in a court outside Staffordshire.
Judge Richard McConaghy told Owen Mills: “You have entered two guilty pleas. Your case will proceed to sentence. I am going to allow a pre-sentence report to be prepared. Cases of this sort normally involve sentences of immediate imprisonment. It will be confirmed to you in due course whether it remains in this court or whether it will be moved to another court.”
Owen Mills was bailed with conditions not to contact his victims; to live and sleep at an address in Cornwall; and not to enter Staffordshire except for court or prior arranged meetings with his solicitor.
UPDATE 13.08.25
Disgraced former Staffordshire Police officer Owen Mills has been jailed after he struck up a sexual relationship with a vulnerable woman.
The 22-year-old had sexual relations with the woman in a police car and then again in a hospital waiting room. And he also exchanged sexual messages and photos with a witness.
Now Owen Mills, who resigned from his position in June 2023, has been locked up for two years. Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court Mills was tasked with supervising a woman who had brain damage due to alcoholism
Prosecutor Kat Shields said: “He took part in the transport of the woman to Harplands Hospital where she was to be detained under the Mental Health Act. The hospital would not accept her as a patient. She was turned away. She was detained in a police car.
“An officer informed Mills to remain with her and he explicitly instructed him to turn his body worn footage on. Mills acknowledged that instruction. What followed was sexual contact between Mills and the woman in the back of the police car while detained under the Mental Health Act outside the hospital.
“When his colleague returned the woman seemed happier and bubblier. He thought Owen Mills had put her at ease. She was taken to St George’s Hospital in Stafford where a bed had become available. At the hospital Owen Mills was again left alone with the woman. They were alone for about 20 minutes. Sexual contact again took place between them.”
The court heard the woman was admitted to St George’s for a number of days and she exchanged messages with Owen Mills. Miss Shields said: “The messages continued on Christmas Eve. They were of a sexually explicit nature and referred to the interactions they had had in the police car outside hospital and in the waiting room at the other hospital.
“On Christmas Day he sent her a message which said, ‘I want you all over me’.”
On New Year’s Day he sent her a photo of himself in a police uniform. In January the woman asked staff at a mental health care facility if it was alright to be seeing a police officer.
Owen Mills was arrested on January 12, 2023. He told officers, ‘That is it, my life is f*‘. He was suspended but resigned from the force on June 6, 2023.
The court also heard Owen Mills had been crewed with just male officers after a number of female officers had reported to their superiors that he made them feel uncomfortable due to his sexual comments and childish behaviour.
And in another incident Owen Mills took a statement from a woman shop worker in relation to a shoplifting offence in September 2022. He asked her for her phone number. She told him he already had it on the form and he stored the number in her phone and texted her.
The pair then exchanged messages and there was a WhatsApp conversation between them between October 2, 2022 and January 4, 2023. Miss Shields said: “He sent her a topless photograph and asked her to send nude photographs in return. She declined, although she did send one of herself in a bra. He sent a video of himself masturbating. They did not meet up and later lost touch.”
Miss Shields added: “A deterrent sentence is necessary. He was an inexperienced police officer at the time. But that does not excuse his very serious offending and his manipulation of two women in this case, one of them extremely vulnerable.”
Owen Mills, of Bude, Cornwall, pleaded guilty to two charges of corrupt or improper exercise of police powers or privileges.
Elizabeth Power, mitigating, said Owen Mills was aged 18 when he joined the police. She said: “It is clear from the statements he received little or no support from his colleagues and how they viewed him. He was a young man isolated from his family and those around him. It is clear it is born out of some degree of loneliness and isolation.
“He takes full responsibility for his actions. He accepts overstepping the line. He has some insight into his offending and how his offending has brought the police service into disrepute. He accepts it amounts to a serious breach of trust. He is now maturing. He is 22. He was of good character. He has lost that good character.”
Miss Power added that Mills may be targeted in a prison environment.
Judge Richard McConaghy said Owen Mills abused his position as a police officer to engage with a witness in a criminal investigation. He said: “You were doing so for your own sexual gratification.”
Judge McConaghy said Owen Mills’ interactions with the second woman were more serious. He said: “When your colleague was inside the hospital discussing whether or not she was to be admitted, you were tasked with supervising her and taking care of her welfare, but you engaged in physical sexual contact with her.
“It is clear from the messages the two of you engaged in further sexual contact in the hospital waiting area. In the aftermath you continued to contact her and a sexual relationship followed.
“Members of the public must be able to trust the police. They must be able to trust that those in a vulnerable position are not exploited by the police. You knew what your responsibilities were and you ignored them to your own sexual end.
“The vast majority of police officers work very hard and maintain high standards. Those who offend in the way you did undermine the confidence that the public can have in the police.”
The judge said the offending was so serious only immediate custody was appropriate. Mills will serve 40 per cent of the jail term with the rest on licence.
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