Police officer who recorded himself having sex with 13-year-old girl gets jail

A paedophile police officer who recorded himself having sex with a teenage girl on her mobile phone after grooming her online has been jailed for more than six years. PC Luke Horner, 24, who is also an ex-soldier, travelled over an hour from his home to Rushden, Northamptonshire to attack the 13-year-old girl he had met on social media .

He went on to sexually assault the victim while off-duty by engaging in penetrative sexual activity, which he recorded video footage of on her mobile on June 11. The girl’s horrified mother later found the film on her daughter’s phone and called police who arrested the Thames Valley Police (TVP) officer.

Horner, of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, was immediately suspended from duty by TVP and later resigned in July. He went on to plead guilty to one count of engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a child aged 13-15 at Northampton Crown Court in August.

On Friday (October 6), he was jailed for six years and four months in prison at the same court and looked close to tears as he was sentenced. Sentencing, His Honour Judge David Herbert KC told Horner he had undermined the public’s confidence in the police.

He said: "This is an utterly shameful day for you. You are being sentenced for sexual activity with a child who was 13 which involved full intercourse. This offence is disgraceful for any man but further to that you were a serving police officer.

"When you became a police officer you would have taken an oath to act with integrity and protect the public. You have failed, and undermined the public’s confidence in the police.”

Horner was told that, had his victim been 12, the charges would have been even more serious. The law dictates that perpetrators of this type of offence, where the child has reached the age of 13, are charged with sexual activity with a child rather than rape.

During sentencing, the court heard from a relative of the young girl who said in her victim's personal statement: “How can I sleep at night knowing what he did? How can he? How did he go into work, put on his uniform and face his colleagues knowing he had broken the law? I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about it.”