A former police officer spoke of his "complete panic" as a drunken woman straddled him and demanded sex in his car while he was on duty.

Ex-Sgt Lee Cocking told a police misconduct hearing he felt "numb" and unable to repel the woman when she threatened to lodge a complaint of sexual assault if he refused to have sex.

The married 41-year-old told the panel he had offered to take her home in an attempt to prevent further trouble after she was ejected from Skinny Dippers night spot in Weston-super-Mare for rowdy behaviour.

He said it was common practice at Avon & Somerset Police, which he learned from his training, for senior officers to drive home "antagonists" from difficult situations because it helped to defuse confrontations.

But the former sergeant, who was acting inspector in charge of policing the town in the early hours of Christmas Eve, 2017, said he rejected several attempts by the woman to seduce him during the journey before she "flung" herself on him in the driver's seat after he stopped the unmarked constabulary car.

Giving evidence on day seven of the hearing at force headquarters in Portishead on Tuesday, August, 23, he said the woman took her trousers partway down while sat in the front passenger seat and asked for sex but that he pleaded with her to stop.

Ex-Sgt Cocking said: "I just had complete panic. I had never been in that position before, ever. I just wanted her to go away.

"I kept repeating the same things to her – 'I have a family, I'm not interested, I can't do this, I will lose my job, I could lose everything'."

"I felt really awkward. I'm not a touchy feely person, I don't like being cuddled, I just wanted to drop her off and go home."

He said that after she threatened to make a complaint against him if he did not comply, he did not consider either turfing her out of the car or radioing colleagues for help because he was focused solely on getting her home and out of the silver Vauxhall.

"If she was going to make a complaint, it was my word against hers," the former officer told the panel.

"It's no different to where we are now. Look at what's happened to me."

The father of two, who grew up in Bristol and moved from Weston to Cheddar in 2016 where he still lives with his family, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after attending a harrowing road accident in 2015 in which a seven-year-old girl died, the hearing was told.

He was on sick leave for four months and received therapy and counselling.

Ex-Sgt Cocking told the panel that working and keeping busy was a coping mechanism for the trauma.

He said the fear for him was not the prospect of being investigated over the woman's false allegations, it was "being stuck at home" while that happened if he was suspended from duty.

"I've been such a mess these last years, I couldn't have coped with it," he said.

The former officer said that when the woman threatened to report him, he could think only about getting her home and out of his car, and not what he could do instead such as telling her to get out or calling for assistance.

"I remember her throwing herself at me. I pulled over and she almost flung herself across the car towards me," he said.

"I remember trying to push her back as best I could."

He said he tried pushing her hand away from his boxer shorts when she was on top of him but that he then sat "gripping" the driver's seat with both hands.

"She shouted at me to 'man up, what's wrong with you, be a man'," he told the hearing.

"I kept telling her to stop. I was just gripping the seat, I became numb. It was like my body was there but I was not there.

"I don't think I was capable of thinking at that point. I just remember feeling numb.

"She climbed off me and said, 'fine, take me home', as if nothing had happened."

Ex-Sgt Cocking, who retired on medical grounds in July, is accused of breaching standards of professional behaviour for police officers in relation to honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct, which could amount to gross misconduct if proven.

He was acquitted of a criminal charge of misconduct in a public office by a Gloucester Crown Court jury in 2021 over the same incident.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has declined to take part in the hearing.