Detective addicted to porn caught in paedophile sting
A DETECTIVE with a sex and pornography addiction was caught by a police sting when he arranged to abuse a girl of eight.
Lee Cunliffe, 40, thought he was messaging the child’s mother in an online chat room used by paedophiles.
In reality, the married father-of-one, who worked for Greater Manchester Police, was talking to an undercover police officer tasked with finding child sex abusers on the internet. After Cunliffe’s arrest an inquiry revealed he had accessed indecent images on the computer of an alleged paedophile he had been assigned to investigate.
Last night his 17-year police career was in ruins after he admitted at Liverpool Crown Court arranging the commission of a child sex offence, misconduct in a public office, perverting the course of justice, plus making and distributing child sex abuse images.
Jailing him for eight years and four months, Judge Andrew Menary, QC, the Recorder of Liverpool, told Cunliffe his offending was worse because of his job.
The judge said he had an ‘altogether unhealthy and perverted sexual interest in young children’, adding: ‘As a police officer the public are entitled to expect you will do all you can to uphold the criminal law.’ Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, said Cunliffe was caught in September 2020 when he struck up a conversation on Kik, a messaging app used by children and teenagers, with a serving Metropolitan police officer posing as a mother of an eight-year-old daughter, known as ‘Mel’.
Using the name ‘SteveSmancgent1’, Cunliffe, a CID officer, told ‘Mel’ that he was not simply a ‘fantasist’ and described in graphic detail how he wanted to have sex with the child.
When arrested, he admitted he got ‘sexual excitement’ out of the online chat but denied he would have carried out any abuse. His iPhone and laptop were seized in a search of his home in Bolton and empty
‘Cover his tracks’
files, with names suggesting they had contained child abuse images dating as far back as 2014, were found.
He had also downloaded indecent images of a child relating to a case he had been assigned to investigate.
The images were on devices belonging to a suspect – but Cunliffe, to cover his own tracks, said there were no images found and a complaint by a teenager who had reported the man went uninvestigated. The suspect came to attention of officers again in January last year.
Julian King, defending, said Cunliffe had been diagnosed with a compulsive sexual behaviour disorder. Cunliffe was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life. He is due to be formally sacked.