Royal police officer used this image to pose online as girl of 17
‘Naughty of me to ask’
A Royal protection officer posed as a 17-year-old girl online to exchange explicit chats with other men.
PC Adam Cox created an alter ego called Emily Whitehouse ‘for kicks’.
When he was asked to send sexually revealing photographs, Cox used a picture of a Canadian woman who committed suicide at the age of 21 and passed them off as ‘Emily’.
Detectives who raided 31-yearold Cox’s home in June last year found 1,691 indecent images on his computer, with one featuring a baby and others showing children as young as seven.
investigators also retrieved internet searches for ‘pre-teens’.
The officer, who was working in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection at the time, is now facing jail. he was suspended from his role with the Metropolitan Police last year.
Cox, from Windsor, admitted four counts of possession of indecent images – 645 of the most serious category A pictures. he denied encouraging three men to attempt to get indecent images from Emily and the charges were ordered to lie on file. The old Bailey heard how he told police: ‘i’m not hoarding images. i have never meant to hurt anyone. i’m not a collector. i’ve not got a secret stash.’
Prosecuting, Charles Falk said: ‘This may very well be an abuse of trust because he is a police officer. his role is security for embassies, parliament and the royal family.’
Nick Yeo, defending, said Cox had expressed ‘intense remorse’ and faced losing his job as a result of the case. ‘he is a man who finds it extremely difficult to articulate his motivation,’ he said.
Judge Mark Dennis QC said Cox had pretended to be a teenage girl ‘for kicks’, adding it was ‘troubling’ that he had yet to come to terms with what it was all about.
The defendant appeared alongside harry gibbs, 32, of stevenage, hertfordshire, Andrew Monk, 39, of Kettering, Northamptonshire, and Ajai shridhar, 46, of Ealing, west London.
The three men, who had engaged in online chats with Emily, had admitted attempting to possess indecent images of children. over two months in the spring of 2016, Monk pestered Emily for sexual pictures and asked sexually explicit questions.
Judge Dennis handed Monk a 12-month community order, saying: ‘over two months you were engaged in online chat with a co- defendant who you now know as Adam Cox but who pretended to be a 17-year-old female.
‘over that two-month period as discussions went on you were making repeated requests to see images of the person you were speaking with who you thought was called Emily.
‘in total you received five category C images and one category B of her, she being a [woman] now sadly deceased from abroad, but images that Mr Cox had obtained online to carry out his fantasy of speaking to people such as yourself pretending he was a 17-yearold female in online chat.’
gibbs chatted with Cox between July and september 2015. Even though he knew she was under 18, he tried to set her up on an explicit website, the court heard. he told her she had ‘real model quality’ and advised her that sex was ‘always big business’. supply teacher gibbs was also given a 12month community order.
shridhar asked Emily for photos to ‘cheer him up’ as he chatted with her on skype last year. he appeared keen to see her underwear and told her: ‘Naughty of me to ask, but have you got any pics where you have to wear your school uniform?’
Cox will be sentenced on Friday with shridhar. he was suspended from duty in August last year following his arrest and will also face a misconduct review.