British royal police officer viewed indecent images by posing as teenage girl online

A British police officer for the British royal family posed online as a 17-year-old girl "for kicks" and viewed more than 1,000 indecent pictures, a court heard.

British royal police officer viewed indecent images by posing as teenage girl online

A British police officer for the British royal family posed online as a 17-year-old girl "for kicks" and viewed more than 1,000 indecent pictures, a court heard.

Pc Adam Cox, 31, was working in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection when he created an alter ego called Emily to exchange explicit sex chat with other men online.

When his home was raided in June last year, his computers were seized and found to contain the chat logs and internet searches for "pre-teens".

Following his arrest, he said: "I’m not hoarding images. I have never meant to hurt anyone. I’m not a collector. I’ve not got a secret stash."

But investigators retrieved 1,691 indecent and extreme images, with one featuring an infant and others showing children as young as seven.

There were 645 of the most serious category A pictures, 201 category B, 449 category C and 396 extreme pornographic images of bestiality with dogs and horses.

Last month, Cox, pleaded guilty to four counts of possession of indecent images.

He denied encouraging three men to attempt to get indecent images from "Emily" and the charges were ordered to lie on file.

Prosecutor Charles Falk said: "This may very well be an abuse of trust because he is a police officer.

"His role is security for embassies, parliament and the royal family."

Mitigating, Nick Yeo said Cox had expressed "intense remorse" and faced losing his job as a result of the case.

He said: "He is a man who finds it extremely difficult to articulate his motivation and one can quite understand that because the context is extremely unusual conduct, one might think."

Judge Mark Dennis QC said Cox had pretended to be a teenage girl "for kicks", adding it was "troubling" that he had yet to come to terms with what it was all about.

The defendant appeared at the Old Bailey to be sentenced alongside Harry Gibbs, 32, of Stevenage, Andrew Monk, 39, of Kettering, and Ajai Shridhar, 46, of Ealing, west London.

The three men, who had engaged in online chat with Emily, had admitted attempting to possess indecent images of children.

Over two months in the spring of 2016, Monk pestered Emily for pictures, particularly of ones wearing high heeled shoes. He posed sexually explicit questions such as asking: "Are you a moaner or a screamer?"

Shridhar asked Emily for pictures to "cheer" him up as he chatted with her on Skype in February and March last year. He appeared keen to see her underwear and told her: "Naughty of me to ask but have you got any pics where you have to wear your school uniform?"

Gibbs’ chat logs with Emily went on between July and September 2015. Even though he knew she was under 18, he tried to set her up on the "Chaturbate" - chat and masturbate - website, the court heard. He told her she had "real model quality" and advised her that sex was "always big business".

Cox will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order.

He was suspended from duty on 2 August 2016, following his arrest.

The Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) will conduct a misconduct review once criminal proceedings are complete.

Judge Dennis adjourned sentencing of Cox and Shridhar until next Friday morning.

He handed Monk a 12-month community order, saying: "Over two months you were engaged in online chat with a co-defendant who you now know as Adam Cox but who pretended to be a 17-year-old female.

"Over that two month period as discussions went on you were making repeated requests to see images of the person you were speaking with who you thought was called Emily.

"In total you received five category C images and one category B of her, she being a teenager now sadly deceased from abroad, but images that Mr Cox had obtained online to carry out his fantasy of speaking to people such as yourself pretending he was a 17-year-old female in online chat."

Supply teacher Gibbs was also given a 12-month community order. The judge told him: "Fantasy or otherwise, it is of great concern to the court as to the risks you may pose for others."

The girl whose images Cox passed off as Emily is understood to be a Canadian woman who committed suicide at the age of 21.

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