Ex police officer jailed for sending inappropriate messages to crime victim

A former police officer has been jailed for sending inappropriate messages to a vulnerable woman after she reported that sexual images of her had been posted on the internet without her consent.

Stuart Trentham, 41, was a South Yorkshire Police officer based in Doncaster who was in charge of investigating the woman’s complaint in June 2022, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

A judge was told that Trentham (pictured) 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.

Judge Jeremy Richardson KC jailed him for nine months on Monday.

He said the defendant began sending WhatsApp messages which started off 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.

Prosecutor Joseph Bell described how the the officer’s behaviour deteriorated when he began to sign his messages to the woman with a kiss.

As the messages became more inappropriate, Trentham told the woman he “liked a bit of meat” and how he “preferred a curvy woman to a stick”.

As this conversation continued, he said there is “nothing worse than a flat, boney butt”.

Mr Bell said the woman blocked the defendant after this but decided to unblock him as she thought he might still have legitimate information about the investigation she wrongly believed was ongoing.

Trentham later sent the woman a picture of him in police uniform with the message “working hard” accompanied by winking and kissing emojis.

Mr Bell said the defendant questioned the woman about her tattoos and replied “nice view”, with a winking emoji and kisses, when she sent him a picture of her back.

He asked about whether the woman had a partner and said he could be “cheeky covertly”, saying “good, the alternative would be boring” and “I like being cheeky, naughty, it’s fun”.

Mr Bell told Judge Richardson the woman has ADHD and mental health problems which are so severe she needs a carer to help her.

He said she felt compelled to reply to the officer.

Mr Bell said the interaction has had a “catastrophic impact on her mental health”, adding that: “It was just another thing she had to deal with and was already on the edge.”

He said the woman had trusted Trentham when he investigated the sexual images but said in her victim personal statement: “I have now come to the painful realisation that I was simply a target for exploitation by him.”

David James, defending, said his client wanted to apologise to the woman and to his former colleagues in the police.

Mr James accepted the judge’s observation that Trentham has “ruined his life”, pointing out that he resigned from South Yorkshire Police before a misconduct hearing found that he would have been sacked if he had stayed on.

The barrister said his client managed to find another job, but was sacked because of the publicity over this case.

He said Trentham, who became an officer in 2018, accepted that “his actions undermine the public’s confidence and perception of the police” but also pointed-out that none of his actions would have been a criminal offence if he was not a police officer at the time.

Wearing a blue suit, white shirt and a striped tie, Trentham, of Pontefract, West Yorkshire, sat in the dock with his head bowed for much of the hearing.

He pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office at a previous hearing.

Judge Richardson told Trentham that he had considered very carefully whether he could suspend the sentence, especially given what he heard about the delays in the case and how they had affected him.

He said he had also read about how the defendant has masked being on the autistic spectrum and was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder at the time, after seeing “terrible events” during his work.

But the judge said to him: “You are not a man who is irredeemably wicked but you have committed a crime that has undermined the trust the public rightly repose in the police.

“That’s why this crime is taken so seriously by the courts in this country.”

Judge Richardson said it was a serious breach of trust and he was concerned that this kind of offending could result in vulnerable women not coming forward to report crimes.

He told Trentham: “I take no pleasure in sending a former police officer to prison for nine months.

“You have brought this on yourself. It is a terrible day for you.

“I hope this sentence restores some confidence the public repose in the police.”

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