Flying Squad Officer Jailed For Child Sex Offence On Internet

A Flying Squad detective was jailed for 18 months yesterday after he unknowingly tried to groom an undercover colleague posing as a young girl in an internet chatroom. Detective Constable Glenn Algar, 45, met what he thought was a 12-year-old on the internet and bombarded her with lurid text messages, Southwark crown court, London, heard.

He became obsessed with the youngster calling her “babe” and telling her she was beautiful and repeatedly insisting he loved her. He also sent her a string of indecent images. However the youngster was actually an officer from the Metropolitan police’s paedophile unit.

Algar, who was based in Finchley, north London, was arrested and police found a small library of child pornography at his home in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. A number of the images were graded level 5, the most serious.

The officer, who signed resignation papers just before going into court, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to persuade an under-age child to engage in sexual activity and to 10 counts of trying to incite a child to view indecent material. He also admitted five charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing 168 similar pictures.

Judge Christopher Hardy told Agar: “In passing a custodial sentence upon you I do so not only to punish you – although you have already been visited by the shame of this incident and the loss of your career – but perhaps more importantly as a deterrent to others from accessing and using this sort of material.”

The judge said the children whose images were found in his possession were “victims just as much as the girl in this case would have been had she been real.
“You made use of those images and your making use of them and people like you who make use of such images encourages others to make them in the first place.”

Peter Zinner, prosecuting, told the court that during 26 years of service the officer had been repeatedly commended by his senior officers for his activities in detecting and preventing crime and putting himself at risk. He said the police operation involved a “covert internet investigator” posing as a 12-year-old girl and then waiting to see who contacted him.

The court heard that after his first email Algar got in touch almost every day, beginning first thing in the morning and not stopping until last thing at night. As the exchanges continued his comments contained “increasing sexual innuendos”. Eventually he sent a string of images showing adults abusing themselves.

Mr Zinner said: “As you can see he was regularly declaring his love for her. He was wishing her goodnight and wishing her a good day at school.”

Officers traced Algar’s mobile and discovered the phone was registered with the police and decided to act.

Defending, Graham Arran told the court Algar was “genuinely remorseful” for his behaviour.