Police officer 'handcuffed heroin addict and raped her over settee'



Accused: Police officer Pc Stephen Mitchell, 42, is charged with multiple counts of rape, indecent assault and misconduct in a public office

A former heroin addict told a court how a blackmailing police officer cuffed her hands behind her back and then raped her over a settee in her home while still in his uniform.



PC Stephen Mitchell first made the woman perform a sex act on him in a police station interview room after he had arrested her, Newcastle Crown Court heard.



He was able to keep her under his control - calling on her home and demanding sex - for a further four years by using threats and blackmail, the woman said.



The witness, a lesbian in her 30s and now a postgraduate after years of being clean of drugs, said the officer even gave her money to buy herion when she was trying to kick the drug, telling her that attempting to quit would fail.



Mitchell, a 42-year-old Northumbria Police officer from Glasgow, denies five counts of rape, six indecent assaults and 15 counts of misconduct in a public office. The offences, involving 16 complainants, are alleged to have occurred between 1999 and 2006.



The woman said her ordeal began in 1999 when Mitchell arrested her on suspicion of fraudulently cashing a benefits cheque at a Sunderland post office.



She was taken to Pilgrim Street Police Station, Newcastle, where he suggested that she would not be charged if she performed a sex act on him, the court heard.



Giving evidence from behind a screen, she said the officer handcuffed her, claiming he was arresting her for benefit fraud.



She told the jury that, as she became hysterical, he said he would 'give me something to cry for' and raped her.



'He said he would teach me a lesson,' she said.



'(That) it was my own fault. (That) I was a junkie, nobody would ever believe me.'



She added: 'I knew there was no way out of the situation, to stop the pain. I was hysterical.'



'I had never engaged in sexual activity with a male before,' she said.



Afterwards, the court heard, Mitchell threatened to tell his victim's partner about what had happened, and even have her lover arrested.



'I was terrified of him because I knew what he was capable of. Actually I didn't, but I thought I did," she said.



Over the next four years, she claimed Mitchell regularly called on her to perform a sex act on him in his car.

On one occasion, parked on a dirt track near Sunderland, they were seen by two women on horseback who, the witness said, shouted: 'You are disgusting, move or we will call the police'.



Mitchell helped her win a place at a drug rehabilitation centre, but she would have lost the place if she was charged with the post office fraud, she said.



'I always had so much to lose, especially when I was trying to get into the rehab centre,' she said.



'I knew if I had charges (against me) they wouldn't take me. It was a vicious circle.'

Mitchell took her out of the centre on one occasion so she could buy heroin - despite her being clean of the drug, she claimed.



He gave her £25 and she bought a bag from a local dealer, later flushing it down the toilet, she said.



She claimed he undermined her attempt to kick heroin, telling her: 'You know in your heart of hearts, this is not going to work. You have tried before. In a nutshell, you are a failure.'



The decision to throw the drugs away later was, she said, 'probably the hardest thing I ever did in my life, definitely the most beneficial'.



She said Mitchell always blackmailed her into performing sex acts, telling her he possesed CCTV footage of her committing an offence. Despite repeated requests, he refused to hand over the tape, she said.



By this time, she had a job and her own flat and said she was terrified she could lose it all if the tape emerged.



'I had become more compliant because I knew what would happen if I hadn't,' she said.

'It was always quite rough. I always ended up hurt.



'It was not what I wanted to do or that I found him attractive in any shape or form.



'It was because I didn't have a choice because of what I would lose.'



She said when she moved into her own home, he turned up at her address, even though she had not told him where she was living.



'It was my intention to disappear. There was a knock at the door... I can remember it specifically because my world just crumbled.'



He took a set of keys and when she returned from work one night she found a knife planted in her pillow, she claimed.



The home she was so proud of became a 'nightmare' and she used to sleep under the bed because she was petrified, she told the court.



The trial continues.

