By Eric King-
A former police officer who used a police helicopter to film people having sex has been jailed for a year. 50 year old Adrian Pogmore admitted four charges of misconduct in a police office at Sheffield Crown Court.
Four other police officers and two pilots had been cleared for misconduct, leaving Ignore the only guilty officer for misconduct.
The three week trial heard a couple sitting near a caravan in 2008 were filmed, as well as a woman was sunbathing naked with her daughters. Also included in the footage that July day was a woman having sex in her patio. She had waved at the camera at one point. The acquitted defendants had claimed not to have known that Pogmore, who was described by the prosecution as ”a swinging and self obsessed air observer” was filming.
Each of the people being filmed complained of having their privacy invaded. Despite the other crew members claiming to have been unaware of the filming, it seems highly unlikely they would not have known of the filming going on. How they could have been in the same helicopter and not been aware one amongst them was filming appears ludicrous. However, with the four officer united in their stance, there was little option to convict them. It would be virtually impossible to prove that they were aware Pognore was filming . Pognore would have had to be filming so covertly, with the other officers asleep or on their phones throughout the filming in the helicopter.
The case just exposed the levels of high indiscipline that many times occur in the police force. The police are supposed to be of high moral standards, but unfortunately it appears many of them only specialise in catching criminals with no morals, whilst their own immoralities are hidden until situations like the one in Sheffield arises.
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Pognore was sacked in 2015, and South Yorkshire police stated that despite the acquittal of the other four officers, an internal disciplinary proceeding will take place. In 2016, there were several cases of police misconduct that were exposed in court trials. The eye of media.com reported on most of those cases. Some included cases of fraud , domestic violence, sexual assaults, drugs, and Paedophilia in one or two cases. Police officer should do more to check on their colleagues and root out the bad apples among them for the sake of their overall image. The cases of police misconduct in the Uk are simply too high and need to be checked. It makes it difficult to tell what proportion of police officers are actually professional, but there certainly would be a lot of them.
Officers who join the force are required to be of good character, and never been in trouble with the law before. As such, it is expected they are of good standing, until misconduct proves them to simply have evaded detection up until their appointment as officers.
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