Category Archives: Police

Benjamin McNish – Benfleet

15 Thursday Jul 2021

Posted by in Essex, Police

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July 2021

Police officer gets suspended sentence after spying on victim in shower

A Metropolitan Police officer who worked on the sexual offences unit has been given a suspended sentence after being convicted of spying on a female in the shower while he was off-duty in Swiss Cottage.

On July 14, detective sergeant Benjamin McNish, appeared at Southwark Crown Court and was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison, suspended for two years.

The 30-year-old will also be placed on the sex offender’s register for seven years and has been ordered to complete a sexual offenders’ programme, attend rehabilitation and pay £750 in costs.

McNish worked for the East Area Command Unit – which covers Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge – and his charge related to an incident in Adelaide Road on February 18, 2019.

He used his phone to film through a glass panel above a bathroom door while the victim was showering.

McNish claimed he was looking for his razor when he poked his mobile phone into the shower while the woman was naked

After the female saw the phone and confronted him, the police were called and McNish was arrested at the scene.

McNish was a serving police officer who was working in community safety, had been involved in child abuse investigations and the force’s sexual offences unit.

Adam Grice-Roberts – Blackpool

15 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by in Lancashire, Police

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Update: PC Adam Grice Roberts, 32, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison at Preston Crown Court after admitting having sex with a 15-year-old in the back of his police car, while she was high on gas.

1995

PC ‘raped’ 15-year-old girl high on solvent

A police officer raped a 15-year-old solvent addict in the back of his patrol car after finding her “insensible” in an alley, a court was told yesterday.

Preston Crown Court was told that Constable Adam Grice-Roberts, 32, had been told to take the girl to hospital but had sex with her in the car in the police station garage at Blackpool, Lancashire.

The jury was told Grice-Roberts admits having sex with the girl but claimed she had persuaded him to do it. He has pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse but denies rape.

Guy Gozem, for the prosecution, said that the girl was “insensible” from inhaling gas, to which she was addicted. “She was in no condition to decide whether to consent or not,” he said. “The prosecution say this fact was obvious.”

The rape is alleged to have happened on 18 April when a woman found the girl – “apparently in another world” – and called the police. Mr Gozem said there was no dispute Grice-Roberts put her in his car where she carried on inhaling gas and that he had taken her to Blackpool police station where a sergeant advised him to take her to hospital.

“He walked her back to his car in the police station garage and in the back of the car had sexual intercourse with her there and then. He then drove her to hospital.”

The girl, who cannot be named, had been to her parents’ home in Blackpool for the Easter weekend and was due to return to a children’s home in North Wales where she lived.

After Grice-Roberts dropped her at the hospital, she caught a train out of the resort. She was put off the service at Preston because she was seen inhaling gas. She ran away from a police officer and later that day made two phone calls to ChildLine.

The girl told a policewoman in video interviews that Grice-Roberts had touched her indecently while she was in the alleyway, putting his hand down her pants and asking her if it felt good. Mr Gozem said the girl had said no. She said on the video that the officer had let her carry on sniffing in the car, where he touched her again.

Mr Gozem said after they arrived at the police station they were sent away almost immediately by the sergeant. Grice-Roberts agreed that “there and then, almost immediately, he had sexual intercourse with her as she lay across the back seat of the car”.

The girl claimed she was inhaling from a can as the officer had sex with her. Three empty cans were later found in the underground garage. The girl told police about her condition at the time: “I was really out of it.”

Asked if she had told Grice-Roberts not to do it, she replied: “No, at the time I didn’t even know what was going on. I was high. I knew he was having sex, but I was high.”

Mr Gozem said Grice-Roberts’s account to police was that the girl had consented to intercourse and that in effect she had persuaded him to do it. He claimed she had talked about it and said she wanted it, and touched him on the way back to the car “to leave him in no doubt she wanted sex”.

Mr Gozem said from the description of other witnesses “it must have been perfectly apparent this girl was in no position to consent to sex”.

Two video-taped interviews with her would form her main evidence and she would then be cross-examined by videolink.

The jury of seven men and five women watched on television screens set up in the court as the girl described in a taped interview what she claimed had happened when Grice-Roberts found her. She said: “I can’t remember much. I was face down. I got up and carried on sniffing. He kept asking me why I did it.”

She said the officer, who was in uniform, had put his hand down her pants. “He asked me if it made me feel good,” she said. “I said no. He said, ‘Carry on finishing your can.’ Then he took me back to the car. He carried on touching me.”

She claimed that in the dimly lit underground car park at Blackpool police station he had then had intercourse with her. “He did it. He had sex with me in the car,” she said.

She then described how Grice-Roberts dropped her off at the Victoria hospital. She left without being treated after asking to use the toilet.

She went home, packed a bag to return to the children’s home and caught a train for Preston, but ran off when she saw a policeman waiting at the station. She then phoned the children’s helpline ChildLine and told them what had happened.

The girl said she had bought six cans of butane gas that day and had already sniffed three of them. She said: “I was high. I knew I was having sex but I was high. I am not lying.”

The trial continues.

Alexander Murphy – Paisley

12 Saturday Jun 2021

Posted by in Police, Renfrewshire

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June 2021

Police officer plied underage girls with booze and sexually assaulted one at party

A police officer sexually assaulted a schoolgirl at a party after plying her and other underage girls with alcohol.

Alexander Murphy touched the 15-year-old inappropriately after previously telling her that she was his ‘favourite’ and that he thought she was ‘cute – but not in a paedophile way’.

A court heard he asked her if she would “come up to bed and stay” if he did a handstand for her – and touched his crotch while doing gymnastics moves.

Murphy, who has since resigned from the force in disgrace, was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register yesterday after holding his hands up to his “creepy” actions.

Murphy, 49, appeared in the dock at Hamilton Sheriff Court for a pre-trial hearing and pleaded guilty to two of the four charges he faced.

He admitted sexually assaulting a girl, who can’t be named for legal reasons, and committing a breach of the peace by supplying alcohol to underage girls and making inappropriate remarks to them, at a property in Uddingston, Lanarkshire.

Procurator Fiscal Depute Alice Carey said the crimes were committed on March 8, 2019.

The prosecutor said Murphy took a group of girls, including the girl he went on to sexually assault, to a local off-sales.

She explained: “They got Dragon Soup and a bottle of Echo Falls wine each.

“They all started drinking. The accused decreed more people were allowed to attend, but only girls because he wanted a girlfriend.

“More girls arrived and the accused went to the off sales to get more alcohol for the girls who’d also attended.”

The court also heard he bought a litre of vodka and he sold it on to two other girls who did not have any alcohol – by measuring it out into the equivalent of two quarter bottles and charging them £5 each.

The prosecutor said some of the girls at the party ended up really drunk, as did Murphy.

She explained: “He started acting inappropriately, asking the girls their ages and saying, ‘I better not tell my wife, I’ll get into trouble’.”

He put his hand onto one of the girls’ knees and rubbed it while she was sitting down, and then placed his hands on her hips while they were dancing.

And the court heard he had previously said to the girl, ‘You’re my favourite, you’re a wee cutie. You’ve got a cute smile, but I don’t mean it in a pedophile way’.

Miss Carey added: “Many of the girls were concerned and thought he was being creepy.

“Three boys arrived at the party and did not drink alcohol.

“They did not see anything inappropriate on the part of the accused.

“They said he was drunk and was hovering about speaking nonsense.”

And she said that, whilst he was doing “some sort of gymnastics move” he was touching his crotch at the same time.

The matter was later reported to police and Murphy, who was based in Livingston at the time, admitted what he’d done when interviewed.

Sheriff Mungo Bovey QC called for background reports to be prepared, placed Murphy, of Paisley, on the Sex Offenders’ Register, and adjourned the case until next month.

Neil Bowdery – Chatham

07 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by in Kent, Police

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June 2021

Former police officer claims he was bombarded with indecent images after trying to join paedophile hunters

A former police officer claimed he was “bombarded” with images – including sick photos of children as young as one – after trying to become a paedophile hunter.

Neil Bowdery said he had met a man called ‘James’ because he wanted to join the hunting group

But when asked why he didn’t report the illegal messages to his iPhone said he had romantic feelings towards the man and feared driving him away.

A judge has now heard how when police seized a mobile phone belonging to another pervert, they discovered Bowdery’s telephone number on it.

Prosecutor Naomi Perry told Maidstone Crown Court: “Police officers engaged in dealing with indecent images seized a mobile phone.

“After looking at that phone they discovered a link to the defendant, who had been communicating by chat and that images had been sent to Bowdery.”

She said the ex-cop asked if the other man had “any nice pics lately” and “Do you have any to send.”

Ms Perry said the two men then talked about children and Bowdery sent the man a lewd message about his daughter.

Officers later discovered Bowdery had received an image of a girl.

The prosecutor added that Bowdery then asks if it would be “OK” to message the child?

In February or March 2020 he messaged a woman asking: “Any chance of some w****** material today LOL?”

Bowdery, formerly of Goldstone Walk, Chatham, was raided by police in September last year when his iPhone, containing the illegal images, was taken.

Bowdery later told investigators that he was an ex-police officer and “in the course of his work, he had come across a man who claimed to be a paedophile hunter,” said the prosecutor.

She added: “There was a man, given the name of James, who had sent him Category A nude images.

“He said he had bombarded him with images. Bowdery said he was doing all this to become a paedophile hunter.”

The prosecutor said that in a later interview, Bowdery said he had “got involved with this man and didn’t feel able to challenge him.”

Bowdery said the other man had sent him “shed loads of images” but not all of children.

His interviewer asked: “Why didn’t you report him?” and Bowdery replied: “Because of the bi (sexual) thing. I know I should have done it but I didn’t want him losing interest in me.”

The 37-year-old, who now works at a garden centre, admitted possessing nine images of children on his phone, across all three categories of seriousness.

He was given a 15-month jail sentence suspended for a year, ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work for the community and has been made subject of a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

The Judge, Recorder James Dawson, said: “You know in your own mind that this was totally unacceptable behaviour.”

In 2013, he was cleared of allowing a schizophrenic man to die in front of him as he tried to return him to hospital.

Stephen Walker – Tadworth

26 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by in Police, Surrey

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May 2021

Ex-police officer jailed for 29 years for child sexual abuse offences

A former police officer and children’s football coach convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse of at least 15 children over more than four decades has been sentenced to 29 years in jail.

Stephen Henry Walker, 68, formerly of Chipstead Lane, Lower Kingswood, Tadworth was found guilty of 40 charges of sexual assault relating to 15 victims, both boys and girls, following two criminal trials at Croydon crown court earlier this year.

He was convicted of 33 counts of sexual assault in the first trial, which lasted more than seven weeks, and a further seven counts of abuse in the second.

Walker, who worked as a salesman and was a Metropolitan police officer for about a year, was also a coach for a number of children’s football teams, where he met some of the victims, while others were children he knew through family friends.

Although the majority of the offences were committed in Surrey, Walker also abused children in France and Malta and other locations outside the UK.

An investigation into his offending was launched after one of the victims came forward in March 2018. As the enquiries progressed, his strong sexual interest in children, particularly boys – although two of the victims were girls – became apparent.

The offences included sexual assaults, gross indecency with children, inciting a child to commit an act of gross indecency, as well as offences of attempted buggery and buggery of some of the children.

The offences took place between 1966 and 2007.

Once the full extent of Walker’s abuse began to emerge, he fled to Malta, where he lived under an alias.

He returned to the UK in October 2019 and was subsequently arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse offences.

Two days later, he was charged and remanded in custody.

Surrey police’s complex abuse team located other potential victims and witnesses. This resulted in a large number of victims being identified and led to further charges being laid against Walker while he was on remand.

Many of Walker’s victims were in court for Monday’s sentencing hearing. Some read out prepared impact statements, others requested their barristers read their statements for them.

They detailed emotional problems triggered by Walker’s abuse, including addiction, psychiatric problems and difficulty forming relationships.

One woman, who was abused at the age of 11 and is now 66, said: “The pain has never gone away. I suffered enormous guilt that I allowed it to happen.”

Another said: “I have not spoken about what Stephen Walker did to me for over 40 years. It’s something I tried to forget and put it behind me. He told me there was nothing wrong with what he did. It was a child’s word against an adult’s.”

A third said of being able to provide the impact statement: “I’m glad I have had the chance to speak out and be believed.”

A fourth said he was mad about football and would have done anything to please Walker. “It’s hard to explain what someone like Stephen does to you. He gets inside your psyche. He sexually abused me without a thought for the pain he caused to an innocent boy.”

One man, convinced that abused children grow up to become abusers, left his own children when they were small, for fear of harming them. He is now reunited with his family and has good relationships with them but said “the loss of those wonderful early years is irretrievable”.

Walker was brought to court on Monday for sentencing but refused to enter the courtroom to listen to the impact statements or to hear his sentence.

Judge Elizabeth Smaller said he was a serial child sexual abuser who “chose those who were vulnerable or who he perceived to be vulnerable … or who he felt would be unlikely to be believed”.

The judge imposed sentences for the different offences to run concurrently with the longest sentence of 28 years with an extended one year of licence.

He will have to serve a minimum of 14 years before he can apply for parole