Alistair Leiper, then aged 34, pretended he was 17 years old during online chat with teenager

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A former police officer has been jailed for two years for asking a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act during a Skype call.

Alistair Leiper, who was a police constable with the Met, pretended he was 17 years old when he told a teenager to masturbate after offering to do the same himself on camera in April 2014.

He also asked another 14-year-old girl to expose her breasts, in return for him showing his penis during an exchange on the online chat service the previous December.

She replied: “Go jump off a cliff.”

The 37-year-old, of south London, admitted three counts of attempting to engage in sexual activity in the presence of a child, and one of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, at a hearing last month.

Sentencing, Judge Alistair McCreath said that while his attempt to display himself “to 14-year-old children as you masturbated” had failed, it was “not because of anything you did by desisting but because the children that you tried to expose to this behaviour themselves rejected your offer”.

He told Southwark crown court that Leiper’s actions had “stained” his otherwise “exemplary” reputation.

McCreath said there was a “significant difference in age” between Leiper – then aged 34 – and his victims.

In the exchanges where he pretended to be a teenager, Leiper asked his victim her age, whether she liked “older boys” and if she was a virgin.

Prosecutor Dingle Clark said Leiper asked his victim: “How far you been?”

The girl replied that she had not “even kissed a guy”, before he asked if she wanted to see him “wanking on the camera”. The girl replied: “No.”

Defending, Edmund Gritt said that there had been no “grooming of these victims” and said his efforts could be “characterised as succinct, direct” and “impersonal”. He said: “There is no building of an apparent false friendship or trust over that time.”

Leiper had no previous convictions and was said to be “under considerable personal stress”.

Gritt said that Leiper broke down during an interview when describing an “incident giving a man CPR who subsequently died”.

Leiper was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and 12 months – to run concurrently – for attempting to engage in sexual activity in the presence of a child.

He was also given a sexual harm prevention order for five years and placed on the sex offender register for 10 years.

He was suspended from the Met when he was arrested in August 2015 and has since been dismissed.