SENTENCING two former police officers for fabricating evidence, a judge has described the case as an example of ''noble cause corruption''.

It was a tragedy that people with an unblemished past who had contributed to society for years as police would no longer be able to do so, Judge Paul Lakatos told the District Court in Sydney on Friday.

Michael Cox, Sharon Lucas and two other officers visited a house in Nixon Crescent, Wagga Wagga, early on October 27, 2008, to investigate a robbery during the night in which a car and a flat-screen television were stolen. Later, police found three cars in a local reserve. The stolen vehicle was on fire, another was driven from the scene and the third was found to contain mobile phones and wallets.

One of the phones contained a photograph of the stolen television. One wallet belonged to Matthew Prowse, of Nixon Crescent. When the police arrived at his house, no one was home but the stolen TV could be seen through a window.

The police decided not to obtain a search warrant but to enter illegally. Cox proposed using a key found in Prowse's wallet to gain entry and then later they could say the front door had been open when they arrived, and they had gone in because they heard noises and feared a robbery was in progress. The others agreed.