Bedfordshire police officer offered £3 for sexual images from vulnerable girl aged 16

A former police officer who preyed on vulnerable teenage girls for his own sexual gratification has been jailed.

Roads policing officer Elliot Wright offered £3 to a 16-year-old girl on one occasion in exchange for sexual images, knowing that she was vulnerable and often needed money to buy food.

The 29-year-old from Bedfordshire also arranged to meet another vulnerable teenage girl after finishing a shift on 21 March.

She was under an order not to leave her care home, so staff called police when they saw her getting into a car. Officers tracked down the vehicle and arrested Wright.

He admitted three counts of inciting the sexual exploitation of a child, arranging the sexual exploitation of a child, abduction of a child in care, paying for the sexual services of a child and perverting the course of justice.

Wright, from Henlow, was jailed for three-and-a-half years at St Albans Crown Court on Wednesday, and given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.

A further charge of misconduct in a public office, which he denied, was ordered to lie on his file.

Wright had been an officer in the collaborated roads policing unit - which covers Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire - when the offences took place.

He was immediately suspended and has been remanded in custody. His vetting clearance was removed and he was dismissed from the force in July.

After Wright was arrested with his victim in the car, the girl told officers he had told her to delete his messages.

Detectives later traced potential further victims on his social media including the 16-year-old girl he had paid for sexual images.

The force's temporary Chief Constable Dan Vajzovic said: “Wright is undoubtedly a deviant sexual predator who targeted and groomed young girls for his own sexual gratification.

"Police officers are trained to identify vulnerability so they can protect people from harm. Wright used that training, and his position as a police officer, to abuse some of the most vulnerable young girls for his own means.

"The district judge who remanded him on his first appearance after his arrest described his actions as ‘reprehensible’ which is absolutely fitting. There is no excuse for how he acted, and he has let down his colleagues and further harmed trust and confidence in policing. There is categorically no place in this, or any police force, for anyone who behaves in this way, and I welcome his custodial sentence."

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