A disgraced former Essex Police officer wept in the dock as he was told he was now a convicted sex offender after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Steven Tissier, 37, of Chelmsford was on trial for two counts of sexual assault and a single charge of voyeurism.
Who Was Tissier?
Tissier was a serving police officer at the time of the incident where he touched his victim’s legs and bottom but has since left Essex Police.
The disgraced cop insisted that the sexual acts were consensual and the woman knew she was being filmed.
The victim said she had woken up when Tissier first touched her but pretended to be asleep because she was frightened and hoped he would stop.
Night of The Incident
The incidents occurred after a night out where ‘a lot of alcohol had been consumed’, the jury of eight men and four women were told. The victim took a train from London to Chelmsford with a friend, arriving around half an hour before Tissier who was on a different train to the Essex city.
The victim was said to be ‘not keen’ to get a taxi ride home alone. Instead, she accepted the offer of a taxi back to Tissier’s address.
‘It did not cross [the woman’s] mind that this would have any sexual or intimate relation,’ Mr Matthew Sorel-Cameron, for the prosecution, said in the trial.
Tissier and the woman took a taxi to the defendant’s mother’s home where the woman was said to have quickly fallen asleep on a sofa.
As it Happened
‘She was properly woken up by Steven Tissier stroking up and down her legs,’ Mr Sorel-Cameronl continued.
‘She was wearing tights [at the time]. He began with her thighs before moving up to her bottom. She did not move. She kept her eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.’
The victim sat up with her head in her hands when Tissier left the room. She asked the former cop to call a taxi despite that ‘not being the plan’.
A taxi was called to take the woman back to her home but Tissier then ‘put his hand down [the woman’s] top and groped her left breast’.
Statement From Prosecution
The prosecution said: ‘He was, in her words, ‘playing with it’. The victim says it went on for about a minute. It ended when he announced her taxi had arrived.’
Tissier’s conviction of voyeurism was in relation to his filming of one of the sexual assaults.
The jury heard that the woman was not moving or making any noises during the filming of the incident, but Tissier still insisted she had consented and was aware of the filming.
The jury heard that Tissier had sent a message to a friend saying the woman ‘looked asleep or dead’.
What Tissier Said
When asked why he thought she looked dead, he said: ‘It was the fact that she was lying there, she wasn’t jumping around. It was a figure of speech.’
Mr Sorel-Cameron said to Tissier: ‘The reality is by 2.19am she is fast asleep on the sofa, isn’t she?’ Tissier replied: ‘I don’t believe she was fast asleep’.
Mr Sorel-Cameron said: ‘The videos you took of her were solely for your own benefit.’ Tissier responded the video was ‘for the benefit of both of us’.
Mr Sorel-Cameron put to Tissier: ‘The first time she heard about them was months after you took them, you heard her say that didn’t you? Was she lying?’ Tissier replied: ‘I don’t think she was lying, I was under the impression that she knew they were being taken.’
How The Interview Went
Asked in a video interview with police officers on March 13 what the impact of the incidents had been, the woman responded: ‘I’m not sleeping well at all. It sounds really silly but to comfort myself to fall asleep I would stroke my leg but I can’t do that now without reminding myself of it all. I will try to nap and it won’t happen anymore.’
Jane Foster, Senior Crime Prosecutor from the Crime Prosecution Service (CPS), said: ‘A big focus for the prosecution was the evidence recovered from Steven Tissier’s mobile phone which showed him sharing evidence of his assault with two friends. It included WhatsApp messages and a photo, sent while the victim was asleep before the attack, and video clips of the assault sent to another friend.
‘This also revealed a Snapchat conversation he had with the victim some days before the attack when he suggested ‘a threesome’, a suggestion that the victim rejected, which demonstrated that his sexual interest in her was not reciprocated.
‘When he thought the victim was asleep Tissier acted on those feelings despite there being no indication that the victim was consenting to sexual activity with him and no reasonable belief on his part that she was.’
Tissier will be sentenced at a later date.
