Ex-royal protection officer guilty over porn probe

Former West Midlands Police officer Mark Cranfield will be sentenced on 13 February

A former royal protection officer who "pestered" a revenge porn victim and kept an intimate video and images of her on his work phone has been convicted of misconduct charges.

Ex-West Mercia PC Mark Cranfield, 52, from Bromfield, Shropshire, sent inappropriate social media messages and a friend request to the highly vulnerable woman, a two-week trial was told.

He was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of two counts of misconduct in a public office and a computer misuse offence.

Cranfield, who was based in Ludlow, is due to be sentenced on 13 February.

The defendant had denied three counts of misconduct while in public office and a computer misuse offence, after he was subject to an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation.

He was cleared of a third misconduct offence which related to the social media friend request.

The officer was also accused of sharing details of his marital sex life with the victim and forwarding intimate video and images to a WhatsApp account that has not been traced.

The jury of four women and eight men deliberated over three days before unanimously convicting Cranfield of three of the offences, despite his claims he had no sexual interest in the woman.

The court heard he had made his attraction to the woman obvious when she made a complaint and provided evidence to police in 2018, in which he told her: "I'm glad I got to see the pictures."

Denied being titillated

He said he also believed he had deleted the two images and video, which were found on his work phone more than two years after the revenge porn investigation had concluded.

But he had denied claims he had been "titillated" by the video and said he had only contacted the woman on the social media app to discuss "everyday" issues.

The court heard the former officer then sent messages "pestering" the woman, asking how she was and saying his sex life with his wife "had gone out of the window".

Cranfield had also deleted one of two Facebook accounts he had, to try to cover his tracks, the trial heard.

The woman later retracted her complaint relating to revenge porn, Mr Rippon added, because "she just didn't want to deal with this defendant any more".

Following the verdicts, Cranfield sobbed audibly in the dock as his barrister applied for the case to be adjourned for pre-sentence reports, with judge Kerry Maylin granting unconditional bail.

IOPC regional director Derrick Campbell said Cranfield's actions had "prevented allegations of a criminal offence being fully investigated" and he had accessed police systems without a policing purpose.

"He had no legitimate reason for doing so and his actions have the potential to damage the public's confidence in police officers," he said.