Police officer ‘always intended’ to pay back money he borrowed from woman
A Police officer accused of taking money from a string of women to feed his gambling habit said he “always” intended to pay back a loan he had borrowed from one of them.
Lewis Rollins, 28, from Fareham said he had been brought up to believe that “if you owe someone money you pay them back”, a court heard.
Rollins, who was a police constable in the Metropolitan Police’s central west command unit, is on trial accused of coercive or controlling behaviour, fraud and damaging property.
Jurors at Southwark Crown Court previously heard that Rollins had met Alisha Steeds in February 2022.
The court heard that Ms Steeds had given him £1,500 in May 2022 to cover his rent.
At Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday, Rollins told jurors: “I always intended to pay her back.”
Rollins added that he was “wary” of borrowing money from her as he knows what it is like to “not be able to do things” for financial reasons.
The defendant added: “If you owe someone money you pay them back – you don’t buy things, you don’t go on holiday, you don’t do things until you pay people what you owe.
“That’s how I have been brought up.”
Rollins was also questioned about a trip to Birmingham with his ex-partner, Dr Georgia Miller, who had met the defendant in April 2022 on dating app Bumble.
Earlier in the trial, Dr Miller accused Rollins of “losing it” and attacking her in a hotel room in July 2022 when he thought she had been texting an ex-boyfriend.
On Wednesday, Rollins told jurors that the pair had been driving to the city when he asked Dr Miller who she was texting on her phone.
The defendant said Dr Miller told her she had been texting her father’s friend’s son, but he said it was “quite apparent it was a lie”.
Rollins said when they arrived to the hotel room, Dr Miller asked him to put her phone on charge, and when he did so he noticed “a message from a boy come up”. While he could not remember what the message said, he did recall there was a “winky face”.
He started to “question” Dr Miller about it and said that he was “really upset”, the court heard. Rollins recalled pulling the phone off the charger and throwing it onto the bed.
Kiera Oluwunmi, representing the defendant, asked him he if he had thrown objects around the room, to which he replied: “No, the only thing I threw was the mobile phone that I had plugged into the charger.”
He was asked if he had slammed his suitcase around. In response, he said: “No, I didn’t even have a suitcase.”
The pair left the hotel room to attend his sister’s dance performance. When they returned, Rollins said he tried to ask Dr Miller about the messages – who he said were from someone she had previously dated – but said that she did not want to speak about it.
The defendant said he started to shout and call her names. He said they went to bed and she asked to speak to his father the following morning because “she wasn’t very happy with the way I had spoken to her and acted in terms of shouting and getting in her face”.
Rollins said that after a “lengthy chat”, the pair made up and travelled back to London.
Rollins denies two charges of controlling or coercive behaviour, damaging property and three counts of fraud.
The trial continues.