Edinburgh crime: Police custody officer Rishi Bawa sexually assaulted constable and nurse on night out

A police custody officer who sexually assaulted three colleagues while on staff nights out is facing a jail sentence.

Rishi Bawa groped a police constable and a nurse while out socialising with police officers and civilian employees in pubs in Edinburgh city centre.

The 35-year-old, who worked in the custody suite of the capital’s St Leonard’s police station, also fondled the buttocks and penis of a male colleague during another drunken incident.

Bawa had resigned from his custody job after successfully applying to become a police officer but was forced to ditch his career plans with Police Scotland following his arrest in 2022.

Bawa, from Stirling, pleaded guilty to three sex attacks during an appearance at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in December and returned to the dock for sentencing on Tuesday.

But when the case called Sheriff Iain Nicol was told the social work reports previously called for were not yet available and sentencing was further deferred to next month.

A written narration into the three incidents has been prepared by prosecutors but has not yet been read out in open court.

Bawa was placed on the Sex Offenders Register on an interim basis at the pleading hearing last month.

The disgraced former police worker sexually assaulted a Police Scotland nurse practitioner by groping her bottom during a staff night out at the the Pear Tree pub in Newington, Edinburgh, on August 18, 2021. He also sexually assaulted a police constable by seizing her breast while out drinking with colleagues two months later at the capital’s CC Blooms pub on October 5 , 2021.

Bawa also touched a male custody officer on the buttocks and seized hold of his penis during the same night out with police colleagues.

Details of all the sex assaults will be heard in open court when Bawa returns to the dock for sentencing next month.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We are aware of the outcome of the court proceedings. He is not an employee of Police Scotland.”