Ex-police officer Iain James Clarke jailed for raping woman
- Published
A former police officer has been jailed for five years for raping a sleeping woman.
Iain James Clarke, 48, a PC with North Wales Police's major crime team, lost his job and marriage after raping the victim.
Judge Rhys Rowlands told Mold Crown Court Clarke had "a quite immature, offensive if not dismissive attitude towards women" at times.
He said Clarke, of Northop, Flintshire, did not have "an ounce of remorse".
The jury heard the defendant, who served with the Territorial Army in Afghanistan, raped the victim believing "she was up for it" and was unable to resist him.
Judge Rowlands said Clarke was a man with a high opinion of himself and the rape of the woman in her 40s in December 2015 showed "a complete lack of any moral compass whatsoever".
The court heard Clarke portrayed himself as "the victim of a drunken, consensual dalliance" in which he simply regretted cheating on his wife.
Judge Rowlands described it as "drunken risk taking" born out of "your own sense of worth, bordering on sheer arrogance."
He added: "You showed a callous indifference to her feelings and an overblown sense of your own importance and raped her."
The judge said the defendant maintained he had been treated unfairly by his police colleagues and felt like an outsider after his transfer to North Wales Police from Greater Manchester Police in 2013.
Judge Rowlands said his colleagues had behaved responsibly and professionally.
Defending barrister Bob Sastry said the rape was not premeditated and was "completely out of character. "
"There is no pattern of offending, quite the opposite, " he added.
A North Wales Police professional standards investigation is now being carried out.
Det Supt Jo Williams of North Wales Police said: "I hope that this outcome gives the people of north Wales confidence in the fact that North Wales Police and its criminal justice partners are committed to bringing those people who perpetrate crimes of this nature to justice no matter who they are."