A Metropolitan Police officer attacked a woman in a Birmingham hotel room as he used money from a series of girlfriends to fuel his gambling addiction, a court has heard.
Officer's Deceptive Behaviour
Lewis Rollins, 29, a serving Metropolitan Police constable, used women he met on dating apps to fund his out-of-control betting and told a series of lies to conceal his financial situation. Southwark Crown Court previously heard he was dating two women simultaneously and taking money from both. He also struck up a relationship with a third woman, who was persuaded to take out a £4,000 loan to help with his mounting debts.
Convictions and Assault
Rollins was found guilty by a jury of two counts of coercive or controlling behaviour and three charges of fraud. He was also convicted at an earlier trial of assaulting a fourth woman, who intervened to defend her flatmate, another woman the police officer had been dating.
Dr Georgia Miller, who met Rollins on the dating app Bumble in April 2022, described his “bursts of anger”, name-calling, acts of violence, and controlling jealousy, including monitoring her phone. She accused Rollins of “losing it” and attacking her in a Birmingham hotel room in July 2022, when he thought she had been texting an ex-boyfriend. Dr Miller described being thrown out of bed by Rollins and then “slammed” against a wall.
Financial Exploitation
Financial transactions shown to the jury revealed Dr Miller sent Rollins £1,000 for a bet on one occasion, when he had “insisted” it would pay off, and sent him more than £1,000 on another occasion to pay his rent. When Rollins started dating Dr Miller, he was already seeing another woman, Alisha Steeds, after meeting her in February 2022. She gave the police officer £1,500 to cover his rent, the court heard. Rollins said he “always intended to pay her back”, but the court heard Dr Miller had given him money to pay Ms Steeds, but he had gambled it away instead.
The court also heard from trainee solicitor Emily Busby, who met Rollins on a dating app in 2023 and said she lent him money after feeling sorry for him. She gave Rollins £800 to pay the deposit on his accommodation after he “gambled away” money he had been given by his parents, jurors were told. In December 2023, she took out a £4,000 loan for Rollins, giving £2,500 of the money to him while using the rest to pay off her own debts.
Previous Trial and Sentencing
Rollins stood trial for the first time in November 2024, after being accused by another girlfriend of intentional suffocation and causing actual bodily harm. He was cleared by a jury of those charges but was convicted of assaulting Helen Jackson, the flatmate of Rollins’ girlfriend, by grabbing hold of her during an altercation. Rollins was on bail for offences against Ms Busby at the time of that incident and spent several months in prison awaiting the first trial, jurors were told previously.
Rollins, of Fareham in Hampshire, denied all the charges against him. The jury failed to reach a verdict on a sixth charge, of damaging property, after Dr Miller accused him of breaking a necklace during an altercation on a night out. The prosecution offered no evidence in relation to that charge on Tuesday, May 26.
Victim Impact
In a victim impact statement during his sentencing, Ms Busby told the court: “Lewis has changed my life forever. For the past two-and-a-half years I’ve been trying to recover financially, mentally and emotionally from what he did to me. He made me feel like I was never good enough. To this day I don’t feel like I have my life back. This experience has also affected my trust in the police.” She said she had lost all her savings and remained in debt.
Judge's Remarks
Kiera Oluwunmi, defending, said Rollins was now 29, adding: “These offences are not historic but they were some time ago.” Judge Christopher Hehir said he “wasn’t at all impressed” by the defendant’s letter saying how sorry he was and “if he was sorry the best way to do that might be to have pleaded guilty.” He described how during one incident with Dr Miller the defendant “behaved with breath-taking immaturity and petulance” and also called her names such as “slag” and “c***”.
The judge said: “As well as being jealous, aggressive and occasionally violent to Georgia Miller, you were also manipulative.” In relation to Ms Busby, the defendant “took advantage of her feelings and generosity as a person” and his behaviour “had and continues to have a devastating effect”, the judge said.
Referring to the pre-sentence report, the judge said Rollins had abstained from gambling for some time. Judge Hehir said the defendant had already served the equivalent of a two-and-a-half year prison sentence, but if he had been on bail throughout the proceedings he would have been given a sentence of two years and nine months. The judge said if he was to impose that sentence now, the outcome would be that he would be released within weeks, or within a matter of days, and he added he “can’t see the point of you going to prison for a few days or weeks”.
Judge Hehir told the defendant he was going to give him a community order “because it’s an order with teeth”. The judge sentenced Rollins to an 18-month community order and said he would have to complete 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days. He also imposed a compensation order in relation to Ms Busby to pay back £3,132.50 within six months.
At the end of the sentencing, Judge Hehir told Rollins: “You are to some extent a fortunate beneficiary of the chronology of circumstance.”
