Thaindian News

London, Aug 6 (IANS) A policeman in Britain has been sentenced to prison for three years for having an affair with an alleged rape victim while investigating her case and also having sex with the mother of an eight-year-old rape victim.

Former detective sergeant John Cragg, 42, worked as a rape victim support officer, Daily Mail reported.

His behaviour caused two court cases to collapse.

The officer, who resigned last year, pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to two charges of misconduct in a public office.

Judge John Roberts told him: “I bear in mind that you have lost everything including your job and your wife. But I see no reason whatsoever to hand down anything other than a custodial sentence.”

Cragg ‘abused the trust of the public’ by embarking on affairs with the two women whom he had met on duty as an officer with Lancashire Police’s specialist sex crimes squad based in Blackpool.

Revelations about him caused the Crown Prosecution Service to halt criminal proceedings against a 35-year-old man.

Cragg also admitted having an affair with the mother of an eight-year-old girl in a separate case.

A 32-year-old man was due to go on trial at Preston Crown Court earlier this year, as he was accused of raping the eight-year-old and various other child sex offences. But the Crown Prosecution Service was forced to abandon the case after Cragg was investigated by Lancashire Police’s professional standards unit.