A former police officer who assaulted a woman in the street as she walked home has been placed on a register barring him from rejoining the service. Former West Midlands police constable Oliver Banfield was off duty when he grabbed Emma Homer in July last year before placing her in a headlock and kicking at her feet. Banfield was given a community order and instructed to pay £500 in compensation after admitting a charge of assault by beating at Leicester magistrates court in March. At an accelerated misconduct hearing on Tuesday, the force’s chief constable, Sir David Thompson, said the use of force by the then officer had been “wholly unnecessary and disproportionate”. “The officer was drunk, the officer was off duty and the officer engaged in assault and abusive behaviour and the use of misogynistic comments towards the victim,” he said. He said it was clear from her personal statement the incident had caused “significant psychological distress” to Homer. Finding Banfield, 25, guilty of gross misconduct, Thompson added: “Were the officer still serving, it would be completely untenable that the person could remain in policing; the officer would have been dismissed without notice. “Frankly, the facts of this case show this was behaviour by an immature recruit, somebody who was very much a civilian in uniform and had not made the transition to becoming a police officer with the values and standards expected.” Banfield, who was not present or represented at the hearing, will be added to a College of Policing record to ensure he is unable to rejoin the police service. Homer, 37, was walking home in Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, in July when she was attacked by Banfield, and in a victim personal statement read out in court she said the fact he was a police officer “shook my belief system to its core”. “I often ask myself if the impact of the attack would have been so severe if my assailant was not a police officer,” she said of the incident, which was captured on CCTV. “To be verbally abused with misogynistic slang, grabbed by the neck and forced to the floor on a dark road by a drunk man a foot taller than me is terrifying.” The facts of the incidents and the court’s decision to spare Banfield a prison sentence led to widespread criticism, with the Labour MP Harriet Harman tweeting at the time: “Policeman attacks woman walking home alone after dark. Must have been terrifying for her but no prison sentence. This is proof, if any needed, that [the] system fails women and protects men.” Homer said the effects of the assault had left her with “anxiety, insomnia and stress” which had been “compounded by the slow response from Warwickshire police”. The Warwickshire force has since apologised, admitting its “initial response to the report of the assault was not as swift as it should have been”.