This is the moment a police sergeant is arrested after he was caught naked in a park near a children’s play area, as he is handed a sexual risk order.
Simon Ince claimed he had been jogging and was merely wringing sweat from his clothes after horrified dog walkers spotted him in the nude.
However, police discovered incriminating pictures on his phone showing him masturbating while naked in the same woodland area in Chatham, Kent, around five months before.
He was sacked by Kent Police in 2024 at a fast-track misconduct hearing, but he was spared a criminal conviction because prosecutors ruled there was no evidence anybody had seen him engaging in the lewd behaviour.
However, this week, the 52-year-old father has now been handed a sexual risk order (SRO), applied for by Kent Police.
A judge ruled ‘reckless’ Ince had acted for sexual gratification and ‘enjoyed the thrill of doing it outdoors’, describing his evidence as ‘evasive and untruthful’.
It means the disgraced former officer is banned from taking his underwear off or urinating in public, unless using a public toilet, and is prohibited from going to the Horsted Valley nature reserve, which encompasses the park he stripped off in.
Ince could be jailed for up to five years if the order is breached, and police chiefs say he will be ‘closely monitored’.
Body-worn footage shows the moment Simon Ince was arrested after he was caught naked in a park near a children’s play area
As he was arrested on suspicion of exposure and outraging public decency, Ince told the arresting officers ‘I know, I’m a police officer’
A member of the public managed to take a photograph of him near some bushes without any clothes on
Following the incident, Kent Police had hoped to secure a charge of either indecent exposure or outraging public decency after a file was handed to the Crown Prosecution Service.
But, the CPS ruled the offence could not be prosecuted as there was no evidence Ince had been seen by anyone and so did not constitute criminality.
Ince previously admitted to a lesser public order offence in September 2024, at Brighton Magistrates’ Court, and was given a conditional caution, which required him to attend a ‘thinking skills’ course.
The court heard Ince had been seen naked ‘in close proximity to a children’s play park’ by dog walkers, ‘causing them distress’.
Ince’s solicitor requested he be given a conditional caution – a punishment that avoids prosecution but requires someone to admit their offending and abide by specific conditions for a specific time.
After receiving the advice of the CPS, Kent Police representatives in court agreed to this outcome and Ince was made to attend a ‘thinking skills’ online course and stay away from the Vale Drive park area.
He avoided being placed on the sex offenders’ register, a punishment that would have been handed down had he had been convicted of indecent exposure, the maximum sentence of which is two years in prison.
Following the conclusion of the criminal case against Ince, Kent Police applied for the SRO, which the judge granted at Medway Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
Judge Roy Brown heard that the ex-police sergeant, who now works for a contractor at a utility company, was first seen naked in the woodland by a shocked passersby on February 1, 2024.
In a statement from an eyewitness read in court, they said: ‘As we walked through the cut-through bushes, I jumped, stopped straight away and said “I think there is a naked person”.’
The following day, the same dog walkers spotted a ‘skin-coloured thing hiding in the woods’.
‘I saw what I believed to be the same male from yesterday,’ they added.
Another member of the public managed to take a photograph of him near some bushes without any clothes on.
After being spotted, Ince quickly dressed into ‘keep-fit clothing’ and started jogging around the park, but officers soon arrived and he was led away in handcuffs.
Body-worn footage showed the moment officers arrived, telling the fleeing Ince to ‘stay where you are’ as they rushed into the bushy area to arrest him.
When asked in court why he ran away, Ince said: ‘As I explained to them, I said I didn’t know he was a police officer and that is why I was running.
‘I understand seeing me running makes me appear guilty but I wasn’t doing anything.
‘When they arrested me I wasn’t naked, I was clothed.’
As he was arrested on suspicion of exposure and outraging public decency, Ince told the arresting officers, ‘I know, I’m a police officer’.
He informed them he was based at Maidstone, but that he did not have his warrant card on him.
‘I have literally come out of sight to go for a wee,’ he told the officer,
‘As you can see, I have been running. I am sweating.’
As Ince is seen being led away and put into the back of a police car, one of the officers rings a colleague telling them he needs to speak about ‘a slightly sensitive matter’.
Speaking in court this week, Ince said that he would strip off after a run to cool down and do ‘stretches, squats, lunges’ in an area ‘out of sight of everyone’.
He said: ‘I take my clothing off and wring it out because of the amount of sweat, flap it about and then put it back on because it’s cold.’
Judge Brown asked: ‘Why did you not want to admit it if it was something that was innocent?’
Ince responded: ‘It might not be seen as innocent.’
As Ince is seen being led away and put into the back of a police car, one of the officers rings a colleague telling them he needs to speak about ‘a slightly sensitive matter’
Ince is led away from the park by two officers after he was spotted naked in a park
A subsequent search of his mobile phone revealed images of Ince in the nude in the same location on August 19 and September 5, both in 2023, as well as a video of himself masturbating.
‘They were intended for my partner,’ Ince told the court.
However, Kent Police’s representative Isabella Crowdy told the court that Ince’s wife did not remember the conversation.
The disgraced officer attempted to defend himself by claiming he was suffering ‘a breakdown’, citing a fear that he had Alzheimer’s and grief over his late mother’s birthday.
He told the court he was self-medicating with alcohol to deal with the stress of being an officer, but has since gone sober.
Ince added that he also took up running as a coping mechanism and would ‘run himself to the point he was physically sick’ but has since quit because he claims it ‘has an almost PTSD impact’.
He denied that his action was sexually motivated as he removed his clothes behind trees, a fence and brambles in order to avoid being seen.
‘I have not been trying to be voyeuristic,’ he said.
However, he was asked why he did not return to his home to change which was only a ten to 15-minute-walk away.
He replied: ‘I thought it was that overgrown, and with the fence and trees, I thought I wouldn’t be seen.’
However, Judge Brown said he was in ‘no doubt whatsoever’ that Ince had committed acts of a sexual nature on at least four occasions – in August 2023, in September 2023 and twice in February 2024.
The judge said: ‘For reasons still unclear, Mr Ince decided to take all his clothes off in a public park, albeit a relatively secluded part and masturbate for his sexual gratification.
‘I am clear of that determination because the explanation put forward on three of four of those occasions did not stand up to any cross-examination or examination.
‘I do not accept for a moment that he took his clothes off because he was too warm, to let his clothes dry and put them back on.
‘He did it for sexual gratification.’
Ince did so because he ‘enjoyed the thrill of doing it outdoors’, the judge said, but that he probably ‘hoped not to be seen or caught’.
The court heard Sgt Ince had been seen naked ‘in close proximity to a children’s play park’ by dog walkers
Ince was caught naked by a children’s play area in Vale Drive park close to his home in Chatham, Kent
However, he said the former officer ‘really didn’t care and was reckless’ and that he ‘was not persuaded these are the only times he stripped naked in this location’.
‘His evidence was evasive and untruthful when it came to his motive for stripping and masturbating,’ Judge Brown said.
In a damning conclusion, the judge said: ‘I did not believe Mr Ince’s evidence.’
Since his arrest, Ince has taken steps to address his mental health but the judge said there was ‘nothing which addressed his sexual behaviour’ and believes ‘he continues to be in denial’.
‘He has not faced up to that behaviour,’ Judge Brown said.
‘There has been no explanation as to why he behaved in the way he did.
‘There has certainly been no explanation if he is likely to behave in the same way in the future if he goes back on the drink, [or if he has] problems at home.’
He added: ‘There is no evidence at all he has taken steps to address his sexual misbehaviour, as he does not accept he has sexually misbehaved in the past. I am satisfied he has.’
The case came to light after the CPS confirmed it had been discontinued on January 29, 2024, and following the revelations, Ince fled his family home on safety grounds.
The father-of-two admitted pleasuring himself in public but, in an email sent ahead of a disciplinary hearing, attempted to mitigate his behaviour by saying he was hidden from public view at the time.
The plea fell on deaf ears and he was dismissed without notice after his actions were ruled to have breached the threshold for gross misconduct.
Chief Constable Tim Smith concluded the officer had acted as he did to ‘seek sexual gratification, through masturbating in public’ dismissing any suggestion it was a ‘private’ act.
Outlining his decision in a report he added: ‘I do not accept taking steps to hide from view is sufficient to justify such behaviour.
‘It is conceivable children playing in the park could have easily entered the same area and seen PS Ince naked and masturbating, this could have caused very direct harm to those children. This seems to be a risk that PS Ince has ignored.’
An SRO now applies to Ince for five years, and he will be subject to notification requirements and monitoring.
Ince, of Chatham, has also been ordered to pay costs totalling £2,516.
Although SROs are a civil order which can be imposed without a conviction, breaching one is a criminal offence.
Detective Superintendent Mat Scott, of Kent Police’s Professional Standards department, welcomed the ‘significant five-year order’, confirming Ince will be closely monitored.
He said: ‘Following Simon Ince’s arrest in February 2024, Kent Police explored all available criminal and misconduct options to ensure he could no longer serve as a police officer or pose a risk to the public.
‘This resulted in Ince being dismissed from the force at the earliest opportunity and, following the conclusion of the criminal case against him, an application being made for a Sexual Risk Order.
‘I welcome the court’s decision to grant a significant five-year order. Ince’s activities will be closely monitored throughout that period, and any breach of the order will constitute a criminal offence.
‘The people of Kent quite rightly expect the very best from their police officers. Ince betrayed that trust, and I am satisfied the order now in place will help deter further offending and protect the public.’
