A City of York Council housing officer exchanged explicit messages and “extremely” intimate photos with a vulnerable tenant who was given money and food vouchers in return.
Anthony Patrick, 63, sent the woman images of his private parts and she sent him intimate pictures of herself in exchange for cash – because she was on the breadline and struggling to pay her rent, York Crown Court heard.
Patrick even boasted to the young woman that he was planning to “skive off work, go to the races and get drunk”.
Prosecutor Andrew Espley said that Patrick, who began working for the council in 2020, was responsible for the management of council tenants.
Even before the misconduct offence, he was put on a performance-improvement plan for giving his personal email address to another woman and told that his work wasn’t up to scratch.
He was warned early in 2023 not to repeat this, but he was subsequently given responsibility for a “vulnerable” female tenant.
By the time Patrick took over responsibility for the woman around January 2023, she was in rent arrears with the council.
The victim – who suffers from depression and mania and had financial problems – had asked her friend, a neighbour, to contact Patrick on her behalf after she received a letter from the council about her rent arrears.
She contacted Patrick and told him that the victim was vulnerable. She asked if she could accompany her friend when Patrick had his next meeting at the victim’s home.
The meeting took place a week later and the victim’s friend was allowed to attend. During a discussion about the rent arrears, the female neighbour reminded Patrick that her friend struggled with her mental health and had “no concept of how to pay”.
Patrick told the victim she needed to pay her arrears and got her to write down her bank details to set up a direct debit.
She told him she needed help and vouchers to pay for food and electricity and he told her he would “get her the help she needed”.
Patrick then turned “flirtatious” and when the victim told him she didn’t like people just turning up at her home, he replied: “You’d answer the phone and come to the door if I came, wouldn’t you?”
He then said he was going to “skive off work, go to the races and get drunk”.
‘Highly sexual’
After her neighbour returned home, Patrick asked the victim for her phone number and gave her his personal number.
Following this, and over a period of several months, there was a series of WhatsApp chats and messages between Patrick and the victim which initially began with her asking for help with her finances and arrears.
The messages then turned “highly sexual in nature, interspersed with her requests for money and vouchers”.
“Explicit images were exchanged between them,” said Mr Espley.
In September 2023, during the WhatsApp chats, the victim asked Patrick for money in exchange for the intimate pictures that she had sent him.
He sent her £40 from his own bank account, and later sent her £60 from the City of York Voucher Scheme for the purchase of goods at Aldi.
“He sent her a further £15 from his own account and a fuel voucher from the City of York Voucher Scheme,” said Mr Espley.
In an email sent to her a few days later, Patrick said she wasn’t entitled to the vouchers and that he was “only going to issue them because he said he would”.
In September 2023, the victim went to her neighbour’s house and told her she had “done something stupid”. While she was at the house, her phone kept ringing. The caller was Patrick, but she didn’t answer.
She told her friend that she and Patrick had been exchanging sexual images of each other.
The neighbour “asked her if she liked Mr Patrick,” said Mr Espley.
The victim said no, but she needed the money and help with the rent. She told her friend that Mr Patrick had asked her to go to Leeds where he lived “and offered her money to do so”.
The neighbour reported this to the council’s housing manager in January 2024. The manager and the leader of the council’s housing-management department went to see the victim and her friend the following day.
The victim showed them the two payments she had received from Patrick’s bank account and the WhatsApp messages.
The council bosses reported the matter to police and Patrick was duly arrested at his home in Burmantofts, near Leeds.
‘Ignored warnings’
He told police that he had contacted the victim on his personal phone because he had misplaced his work phone.
He said he had exchanged messages with a woman, but that he had met her on an internet dating site, which was patently false.
He also claimed, falsely, that he only realised it was the victim when she asked him for money. He said he had sent her money because he “felt sorry for her”.
Patrick, of Haslewood Close, was charged with misconduct in a public office by wilfully exchanging explicit images and messages with a service user and giving that user money through his own bank account.
He admitted the offence and appeared for sentence today (Thursday) knowing that a stretch behind bars was a distinct possibility after a judge at a previous hearing told him to “get your affairs in order”.
Prosecuting barrister Mr Espley told the court: “It may be felt that the main harm here is the public’s confidence in officialdom.
“Mr Patrick misused his public office for sexual gratification with a vulnerable woman. He had been told by his line manager that the victim was vulnerable.
“He had been reminded of the standards of integrity required but ignored warnings about his conduct.”
The court heard that Patrick – who is now living off benefits after losing his job – had two previous convictions for benefit fraud.
In a victim statement, the leader of the council’s housing management department – the defendant’s former line manager – said the effect of Patrick’s behaviour on staff had been profound.
It also had a “significant” impact on customer and tenant confidence in the council’s housing services.
She said she was shocked and angry when the tenant showed her the sexual images and explicit messages and found the visit “distressing” to the point that she cried.
“The entire ordeal has had a lasting impact on me personally,” she added.
‘Breach of trust’
Patrick’s solicitor Kevin Blount said that his client, who was married at the time, was struggling with work pressures and personal problems at the time of the offences.
Judge Simon Hickey told Patrick: “What you did, in a high breach of trust, was to enter into a series of communications with that young lady.
“The conversation very quickly turned sexual and the messages are extremely graphic between the two of you, and explicit photos were exchanged.”
He added: “The vulnerable people that are using the housing office should have confidence in officialdom and be treated with respect and dignity and not in the way that this young woman was.
“You used your responsible position in a public office effectively to exploit a vulnerable woman.”
The judge noted that the council had spent “a lot of time and money” investigating Patrick’s crimes.
“This has been a significant distraction for the housing service which had to employ additional resources to this case and it’s had high demands on a very-stretched staff,” he added.
However, Mr Hickey noted Patrick’s remorse, the pressures in his life at the time and his “very good personal mitigation”, which had persuaded him to draw back from an immediate jail sentence.
Patrick was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence with 200 hours of unpaid work and 15 rehabilitation-activity days. He was ordered to pay £150 costs.