Marie Thompson used a fake email address to demand £3,500 from the man she had arrested
A police officer who posed as a paedophile hunter and blackmailed an indecent images suspect whom she had arrested, to fund her gambling addiction, has been jailed for more than three years.
Pc Marie Thompson, 29, used a fake email address to demand £3,500 from the man, and falsely told him she had been unable to find the perpetrator when he reported it to her.
On Thursday Thompson was jailed for 40 months after pleading guilty to blackmail and perverting the course of justice.
Leeds Crown Court heard Thompson was the officer in charge of a South Yorkshire Police investigation into the man, whom she arrested in October 2022 on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.
He was interviewed and released under investigation, pending further examination of his digital devices.
The court heard that the man received an email from a ProtonMail address demanding £3,500 be paid into a bank account, with an account number and sort code provided.
The email was signed “Paedophile Hunters” and said that the payment would “ensure that information remains between you and us”.
It said: “Information has been passed to us that you have been arrested for media involving children. As an organisation which works to protect children from people such as yourself we therefore ask you to make a donation to us.”
Later the same day, the man’s partner received a text message saying that a reply was needed by the end of the day.
The court heard the couple did not pay the money and reported it to the police.
Thompson, who worked in Doncaster, told the man she would investigate the matter, but falsely endorsed the crime report to say that he did not want to pursue a complaint.
The court heard she told “a number of lies” in her pocket notebook entries, including changing the mobile number used to text the man’s partner to conceal the fact that it was her own personal phone number.
The man later received a second email with the subject “I’m so sorry”, which said: “I came to drop something off for my mum and overheard you talking. I never told a soul and never intended to.”
The court heard this was “a further attempt by Thompson to cover her tracks”.
The investigation was closed, and Thompson lied again to the man six weeks later, saying that the sender of the email and text message could not be traced.
The court heard Thompson left that team in March 2023 and her caseload was transferred.
The officer who inherited the man’s case went to see him, and he mentioned the blackmail email and said Thompson had been unable to find out who was responsible.
The court heard the officer checked the number from the text message sent to the man’s partner, and found that it was the one Thompson had used on her police vetting form.
A victim impact statement from the man, who was later given a suspended prison sentence for the indecent image charges, said: “I feel extremely angry towards Marie Thompson, she was trusted in her role as a police officer in a department that comes into contact with probably the most vulnerable persons in society.
“For her to know the position I was in and use it against me is unbelievable.”
In mitigation the court heard Thompson, who is suspended from the force, suffers from a severe gambling disorder and was in considerable debt at the time.
