Police officer on ‘sexting’ charge
APOLICE officer has appeared in court accused of sending ‘sexual text messages’.
Ihsan Ali, from Bacup, pleaded not guilty at Preston Crown Court to the charge of misconduct in a public office between May 2016 and April 2017.
The court heard that 40-year-old Mr Ali while acting as a police constable, ‘wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification misconducted himself in ways which amounted to an abuse of the public’s trust’.
The hearing was also told that he is accused of engaging with several woman he was assigned to as part of his policing duties and used a policeissued mobile phone to befriend woman and personal mobile phone to send sexual text messages.
Mr Ali, Cotman Close, Bacup, is also accused of going to the home of a crime victim, not in connection with the case, and kissing her and squeezing her buttocks.
He is also accused of attending at the home of a vulnerable witness, not in connection with her case, and abusing his position as a police constable ‘contrary to common law’.
Appearing in the witness box wearing a dark suit and yellow tie, Mr Ali denied the charges.
An eight-day trial hearing has been listed to start at Preston Crown Court on January 29 last year.
Mr Ali, who has been suspended from Lancashire Police, was granted conditional bail.
Judge Brown told him: “You have pleaded not guilty and your trial will take place before me on January 29. In the meantime I grant you bail on the same conditions as before. You must comply with that condition and attend on January 29.”
In a statement, Lancashire Police said Mr Ali, a serving officer in Lancashire Constabulary’s East Division, was arrested in April following an investigation by Lancashire Constabulary’s Professional Standards Department and is ‘currently suspended’.