13 hours ago
‘Pc Predator' jailed after exploiting two vulnerable women
A police officer was nicknamed 'Pc Predator' by a burglary victim with whom he had sex while on duty during the Covid lockdown, a judge heard.
Stuart Trentham, 41, was jailed for 18 months on Wednesday by the same judge who had sent him to prison for nine months earlier this year for an 'almost identical' offence involving another woman.
Sheffield Crown Court heard how Trentham was a South Yorkshire Police officer who responded to a report of burglary in 2020 during the pandemic.
Joseph Bell, prosecuting, said the officer began to exchange increasingly 'flirtatious and sexualised' messages with the woman complainant.
Mr Bell said they then had consensual sex when Trentham attended at her house, but that the woman 'saved his number on her mobile phone as Pc Predator'.
The prosecutor said the woman's friend encouraged her to report the matter to the police at the time, but she was worried about alienating her local police.
He said it was only after she saw a documentary about the Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens, who murdered Sarah Everard in 2021, that she decided to make a complaint.
Mr Bell said she was finally prompted by the publicity that surrounded Trentham's jailing for nine months in February for a separate case involving another woman who had complained that sexual images of her had been posted online without her consent.
'You abused the responsibility reposed in you'
On Wednesday, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC jailed father-of-three Trentham, who appeared in court on bail, for a further 18 months.
He told him: 'You abused the responsibility reposed in you. Police officers have a high position in society and are an essential component of a civilised country.
'The public place confidence in a police officer to do the right thing and behave with propriety. You betrayed that trust and you have betrayed that trust now twice. This is a grotesque breach of trust by a police officer.'
Earlier, Curtis Dunkley, defending, said his client had struggled serving his prison sentence earlier this year as a former police officer, saying it was a 'living hell'.
Mr Dunkley said Trentham, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, had autism and suffered with PTSD.
'Catastrophic impact on her mental health'
Previously, a judge heard how Trentham sent inappropriate messages to a vulnerable woman after she reported that sexual images of her had been posted on the internet without her consent.
Trentham had closed the investigation after it was impossible to find who posted the images but he lied to the woman, telling her in messages which became increasingly sexual that a suspect was under investigation and being interviewed.
He began sending WhatsApp messages, which started as 'personal', progressed to being 'inappropriate' and then to being 'sexualised'.
The judge said he found it a serious matter that Trentham forwarded the link to the posted sexual images of the woman on the internet to his personal email account from the police system. But he accepted that the defendant was not able to open the link from his personal email.
Mr Bell said the interaction had a 'catastrophic impact on her mental health', adding: 'It was just another thing she had to deal with and was already on the edge.'
David James, defending at the time, said his client wanted to apologise to the woman and to his former colleagues in the police.
On Wednesday, Trentham admitted misconduct in a public office. He sat in the dock wearing a blue suit and with his head in his hands.
