معرفی
Dr. Fay Sweeting serves as Senior Lecturer in Psychology within Bournemouth University's Faculty of Science and Technology, based at Poole House on Talbot Campus. Transitioning from a 17-year career as a Dorset Police officer (2004-2021), she earned her MSc in investigative forensic psychology (2017) and completed a funded PhD at BU in 2021.
Her academic qualifications include:
- PhD in Sexual misconduct in police officers: development of a risk assessment tool (Bournemouth University, 2021)
- MSc in Investigative Forensic Psychology (Bournemouth University, 2017)
Dr. Sweeting's research spans two critical domains:
- Police Conduct: Focusing on sexual misconduct, abuse of positional authority, and organizational culture within law enforcement. She develops risk assessment tools for early identification of problematic officers and examines institutional responses to victim reporting.
- Health Psychology: Investigating Behçet's disease impacts on intimate relationships and maternal mental health outcomes related to breastfeeding and birth trauma.
Her 14 publications (2021-2025) reveal strong thematic trends in police misconduct research, with 70% examining organizational dynamics, perpetrator typologies, and institutional accountability. The remaining 30% address maternal mental health and autoimmune conditions, demonstrating methodological diversity through qualitative analyses of police culture and clinical studies of patient experiences.
She actively supervises postgraduate research in:
- Rape myths and attrition in sexual assault cases
- Postnatal depression mechanisms
- Emotional processing in neurodiverse populations
- National survey on police sexism and misogyny
- Pilot psychometric testing of police recruits
- Abuse of position risk assessment tool development
- Police-perpetrated domestic abuse study with Bristol University
Dr. Sweeting contributes to national policing reform through membership in two National Police Chief Council working groups (abuse of position and internal sexual misconduct) and the HMIC academic research group, ensuring her research directly informs policy and practice.
