Ex-Met cop who lied in rape cases gets 16 months

Former Metropolitan Police Detective Constable Ryan Coleman-Farrow, 30, of East Sussex, was sentenced to 16 months behind bars at Southwark Crown Court today after pleading guilty to 13 counts of misconduct in a public office.

Mr Coleman-Farrow earned more than £40,000 a year while working on the Met's specialist Sapphire rape and serious sexual assault unit from 2007 to 2010.

But he admitted to faking police records in all 13 cases to cover up a litany of laziness - ducking interviews with key witnesses then later forging their statements, faking forensic records for evidence he had not handed in and neglecting to check for CCTV footage.

The officer even lied directly to the women he was supposed to help.

In five cases Mr Coleman-Farrow told victims that prosecutors had dropped charges and in one case told prosecutors the woman had withdrawn her complaint.

Judge Alistair McCreath told the defendant that he had failed each of the women involved by denying them their right to a fair trial.

"Perhaps some of them might never have got that far but whether those cases did get to court or not, those who were thought to be victims of sexual abuse simply did not have their cases properly investigated."

The sentence is likely to renew public anger over policing of rape and sexual assault. While 58 per cent of rape trials end in conviction, only 6 per cent of all rape complaints in England and Wales end in a conviction as so few of them end up being heard in court.