(Image source: Sky News/Greater Manchester Police)
A police officer who pleaded guilty for trying to arrange the abuse of an 8-year-old girl has been jailed for eight years and four months
According to Sky News, 40-year-old Lee Cunliffe pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, misconduct in a public office, the commission of a child sex offence, the distribution of indecent photos of a child and three counts of making indecent photos.
Cunliffe was a married father and a serving officer with the Great Manchester Police in September 2020 when he committed the offences. He started sending messages to a woman who he thought was the mother of an 8-year-old child, saying that he would come to London to sexually abuse her daughter.
Unknown to him, the woman was in fact an undercover officer with the Met Police. Some of the messages were sent from a computer owned by the police.
Cunliffe’s own computer was found to contain indecent images of children and pictures of a teenage girl who had previously made a complaint to Greater Manchester Police in 2018. At the time she claimed that her boyfriend had shared the image without her consent. Cunliffe was appointed to the case but he kept the photo on his own computer and let the complaint fall without being fully investigated.
In Court, it was said that the teenager had really been failed by the police and it was hard to say why she should ever trust the police again.
It was also stated that Cunliffe’s laptop had a number of files that showed what was described as “an interest in child pornography and the sexual abuse of children.”
It was also reported that there was evidence to show that he knew this and was in a state of turmoil over the situation and was receiving counselling.
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