Ex-policeman tried to meet 15-year-old girl for sex

AN ex-police officer has been jailed after trying to meet a child for sex at a Nottinghamshire KFC.

Former Northamptonshire officer Alex Foster was engaging in “highly sexual online conversations and exchanges of images” with someone he believed was a 15-year-old girl.

However, the 43-year-old was really talking to an undercover officer. Contact began on July 27 and ended in Foster being arrested in the car park of Newark KFC on August 10. His mobile phone was seized.

Foster, formerly of Tilbury Road, East Haddon, Northamptonshire, had been a police safety training instructor since 2013. He had also served in the Special Constabulary.

He was jailed at Lincoln Crown Court for two years for attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

He was also handed concurrent six-month sentences for intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, and arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

Foster admitted all three offences in September and was sentenced on Thursday.

Recorder James House told him he had been in a position of trust.

He added: “You knew perfectly well that communicating with a 15-year-old girl was not only wrong but unlawful.”

Foster was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offenders’ register. He resigned from the force last month – the day before a gross misconduct hearing. He has now been barred from ever again serving in the police.

Speaking after the sentence, Detective Inspector Kim Jackson, said: “We are pleased with the outcome which reflects the gravity of these appalling offences and follows an investigation by the team which, ultimately, uncovered someone who was seeking to have sexual relations with a child. The sentence reflects the seriousness of these offences and demonstrates how this force will stop at nothing to root out police officers and staff whose conduct falls below the line or, as in this case, is wholly criminal.” The case followed an operation by Northamptonshire Police’s counter-corruption team under the direction of the Independent Office for Police Conduct