Policeman jailed for sex on the job

LONDON (Reuters) - A British police officer who admitted having sex with one woman while on duty and propositioning another after she had been arrested was jailed for four months on Friday.

Police constable Gary Bayldon, 48, who was married at the time, visited one woman for sex while working late shifts, calling the sessions "his meal break," Kingston Crown Court heard.

He also asked a second woman to go the woods with him and caressed her hands while taking her fingerprints at the police station, the Press Association reported.

The court heard that Bayldon began a relationship with 34-year-old Donna Cacutt after she called police to her home on the Isle of Wight when a man tried to take one of her children down the road. He was the officer sent to the scene.

Prosecutor Barry Gregory said Bayldon began to see Cacutt regularly, at about the time his 20-year marriage was breaking down, but always when he was on duty.

"He would visit her at her home, she would make him dinner and then they would have sex afterwards," Gregory said. "He would stay for an hour or so. He would call it his meal break."

The relationship lasted for a year until September 2005 but ended with "some acrimony."

Bayldon met the second woman, mother-of-two Suzanne Dunkling, 37, after being called out to a domestic incident involving her boyfriend at her home in October 2005.

She was arrested and taken to the police station by Bayldon who told her he thought she was "gorgeous," the court heard.

Gregory said Bayldon stroked and caressed her hand as he took her fingerprints and later invited her to a forest "for a chat" when he gave her a lift home in a police van.

"She said 'no' because she knew full well he wanted her to go there for sex," Gregory said, adding that the police officer did kiss her, leaving her feeling "disgusted."

Bayldon's lawyer Michael Boardman said his client had visited Cacutt during permitted breaks and had always kept his radio on so he could answer calls.

He said the officer would pay for his "errors of judgment" for the rest of his life.

Bayldon, from Newport on the Isle of Wight, pleaded guilty to three counts of willful misconduct in public office. He has since resigned his post with Hampshire Constabulary where he had served for more than 18 years.

"You as a police officer have very considerable power and the respect of the community you serve in," Judge Charles Tilling said.

"People look up to you. You abused that trust."

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)