Tim Devlin successfully prosecutes a Metropolitan Police officer who shared pornographic imagine with a colleague as form of banter.

Liam Boshein, 25, from Portsmouth, sent the photo out of “morbid curiosity” to a probationary officer, in November 2019. Portsmouth crown court was told that the image, which showed an act of necrophilia, was discovered in April 2021.Officers examined his phone and discovered the photo among 296,000 other images. In a police interview Boshein said that he was “shocked” when confronted with the image and said that he had “no recollection” of the picture and would not have kept it. Last month Boshein admitted possessing an extreme pornographic image.

Tim Devlin, for the prosecution, cited the convictions of PC Jonathon Cobban and former PC Joel Borders in relation to offensive images and remarks shared in a WhatsApp group with Wayne Couzens, the officer who murdered Sarah Everard. Boshein’s “really concerning” conduct comes as police chiefs fight to win back public trust after several scandals.

At the sentencing hearing he said: “You have to look at this in the context of the culture which appears to have arisen in the Met, where people appear to think it is acceptable to share this sort of thing in order to impress each other.”

Judge Mousley imposed an immediate term of forty two weeks imprisonment. News stories here and here