A South Yorkshire police officer who blackmailed a suspect she had arrested in an indecent images case to fund her gambling addiction has been jailed for 40 months. PC Marie Thompson, 29, pleaded guilty in September to blackmail and perverting the course of justice.
Leeds Crown Court heard that Thompson used a fake email address to contact the man, posing as a 'paedophile hunter' and demanding £3,500 to keep the allegations quiet. She had been in charge of the investigation into the man, who was arrested in October 2022 on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.
The court was told that Thompson's actions were driven by a 'severe gambling disorder' that had led to 'considerable debts'. Shortly after the man was released under investigation, he received an email from an anonymised address demanding a donation to avoid publicising the allegations. The man's partner later received a text message with a similar threat, but the couple decided not to pay and contacted the police.
Thompson told the man she would investigate, but instead falsified her crime report and notebook entries, including altering the phone number used to text the partner to hide that it was her own. She later sent another email apologising, claiming she had overheard a conversation, as a further 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 checked the threatening phone number and found it matched Thompson's police vetting form, leading to her arrest and charge.
