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| Kiss: Oniba |
A Police Community Support Officer, who left a WPC in tears after hugging and kissing her on the neck in the station’s basement gym, has been convicted of sexual assault.
PCSO Edward Oniba, 54, was alone with the female officer at Kilburn Police Station and had previously showered her with compliments, which she told the trial were “creepy.”
Oniba, of Pasteur Court, Nightingale Avenue, Harrow was found guilty of one count of sexual assault at the Salusbury Road, station in north-west London on October 30, 2020.
At Harrow Crown Court he was sentenced to a twelve-month Community Order, which includes 100 hours of community service work.
“He said: ‘How about a hug then?’ I don’t like hugging people, let alone strangers and said: ‘ Gosh, no I’m sweaty’ at which point he moved forward and put his arms around me,” she told the court.
“I tapped him on the back and he’s kissed the right side of my neck. I was not sweaty, I just didn’t want him to hug me,” the officer added.
She abandoned her work-out due to Oniba staring at her, she said. “I don’t know if it was like a leer, but like a ‘hmmm…’ so I left.
“He was just looking at me as I was doing lunges and as I was doing mountain climbers he looked around the door.
“I was a little disgusted, shocked and frustrated that I didn’t asked him: ‘What do you think you are doing?’
“I think it is completely disgusting. I don’t see how he feels he has the right to kiss me on the neck, that’s incredibly personal.”
The Metropolitan Police officer of nine years told the court she had only spoken to Oniba for the first time a week before the incident.
She worked-out in a small area by the lift shaft next to the gym either before or after shifts and Oniba was the only person in the basement on that occasion.
“He asked questions like, was I married?,” she told jury, confirming she informed the defendant she had a police officer boyfriend.
“He said something like: ‘The good-looking ones are always taken,” and that he did not know why I was working-out because I looked good.
“He said he had not seen me in the gym for a while and always saw me going into work, walking past and he would check me out.
“I laughed it off as it was a work gym and it was a compliment, but there is a line to being creepy and he crossed that line to being weird.”
When she started her work-out a week later Oniba was there again. “I thought: ‘I really don’t want to be in this situation.’ I just wanted to get on with my work-out.
“He came out of the gym to talk to me and asked what team I worked on and I told him the Response Team. He said: ‘Oh, I’d join if I knew you were there.’
“I told him I was leaving the team anyway and he said: ‘If you’re leaving you’ll have to give me your number.’
“I told him my partner would not like that, but he kept asking ‘if you are sure’ about five times.”
Oniba then moved into hug the petite officer, whose back was against the lift shaft wall, the court heard, but he denies placing his lips on her neck.
After abandoning her work-out the officer messaged a friend: ‘Ed is in the gym and he’s f***ing creepy.’
The friend responded that it was important the complainant’s police officer boyfriend did not find out. “He’s going to break quarantine and possibly someone’s face.”
The officer did not report Oniba immediately, messaging a friend: “I’d rather it if the world did not know.”
Four months later she made an anonymous complaint to the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards and their investigation identified both her and Oniba.
Prosecutor Peter Rouch KC said: “Apart from a polite ‘hello’ prior to the week before the incident the complainant had not spoken to this defendant or know his name.
“He carried on a conversation a week before the incident in a personal and familiar way, saying things like: ‘You look good.’
“It was 7.45pm when she went to the gym and no-one else was there except the defendant, who removed his headphones when he saw her and began talking to her.
“She made it clear to him she was not giving him her telephone number.
“She was standing with her back to the lift shaft and the defendant was gradually getting closer to her and asked her if he could have a hug.
“He put both of his arms around her and hugged her and kissed her on the neck.
“She said she was going to complete her work-out, but was so upset by his behaviour she left and in tears telephoned a friend, a police officer and told them what had happened.”
The WPC WhatsApp messaged two other friends with a similar account of what happened.
“Another work colleague says she was sounding upset on the telephone and then found her at the station crying and later another police officer said she was still upset.”
A few moths later Oniba - attached to the North West Basic Command Unit - was working-out in the gym with a male police officer, the prosecutor told the jury.
“This defendant told him he had been in the gym and there was a female police officer there that he found attractive and asked for her telephone number and that she said ‘no’ and he hugged her and kissed her on the neck.”
Oniba was questioned on May 27, 2021. “The defendant admitted hugging her, but absolutely denied kissing her on the neck.
“It is our case he kissed her in the way described, totally without her consent.”
After the verdict Chief Superintendent Dan Knowles, in charge of the North West Basic Command Unit said: “I am absolutely appalled by PCSO Oniba’s completely inappropriate behaviour, which has absolutely no place in the Met.
“No one should be subject to sexual assault, especially in their place of work. I would like to thank the victim for coming forward and speaking up about her colleague’s unacceptable behaviour.
“PCSO Oniba has been convicted and will now face the consequences.”
He remains suspended from duty a misconduct proceedings will follow.
