PC Marie Thompson, 29, was sentenced to 40 months in prison at Leeds Crown Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to blackmail and perverting the course of justice.
Thompson, who was leading a South Yorkshire Police investigation into a man arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, used a fake email address to contact him after his release under investigation. Posing as an anonymous “paedophile hunter”, she demanded £3,500 to “ensure that information remains between you and us”.
The court heard that Thompson’s actions were driven by her need to cover “considerable debts” arising from a “severe gambling disorder”. The email, signed “Paedophile Hunters”, provided bank details for the payment and threatened to publicise the allegations if the man did not pay.
The man’s partner later received a text message insisting he reply before the end of the day. The couple refused and contacted the police. Thompson told the man she would investigate, but instead wrote in her crime report that he did not wish to pursue a complaint, and made false entries in her notebook, including a fabricated phone number to conceal her own involvement.
She then sent a further email with the subject line “I’m so sorry”, claiming she had overheard the man’s conversation, as another attempt to cover her tracks. When Thompson left her team in 2023, her caseload was transferred to another officer, who discovered the blackmail plot had not been properly investigated. The officer traced the phone number used in the threats to Thompson’s police vetting form, leading to her arrest.
Thompson was jailed for 40 months. She had previously pleaded guilty in September.
