Met police constable found guilty of child sex offences after taking condoms, lubricants, and erection pills to meet 13-year-old outside Basingstoke McDonalds

Francois Olwage, a detective constable who was serving with the Met’s specialist operations unit, was convicted of grooming what he believed to be a 13-year-old girl he had met on the Lycos online chat forum, and arranging to a meet a 13-year-old girl for sex when he was ‘on duty working from home’.

Winchester Crown Court heard the 52-year-old defendant was actually chatting with an undercover police officer pretending to be the girl using the username of Smile Bear, before moving to WhatsApp using the name Caitlin.

The trial has heard that after two weeks of explicit sexual conversations in October 2021, Olwage, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, arranged to meet the ‘girl’, who had told him that she lived in Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Peter Shaw, prosecuting, told the jury that Olwage had been listed as ‘on duty working from home’ on October 28, 2021, the date he travelled by train to Basingstoke with the aim of meeting the ‘girl’.

Olwage was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Basingstoke by two undercover officers as he was about to buy a McFlurry ice cream to take to his meeting with ‘Caitlin’.

When searched, the officers found in his bag two condoms, a bottle of lubricant and a packet of Tadalafil erectile disfunction tablets.

There was also a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates which Mr Shaw suggested was a present for the ‘girl’.

SEE ALSO: Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism ‘tried to meet 13-year-old for sex while working from home’, Hampshire court hears

Olwage told the court that he ‘never believed’ Smile Bear was a 13-year-old girl and that he thought it was an adult ‘playing out a fantasy’.

He also denied any sexual interest in children.

Olwage was convicted of attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause or incite a girl aged 13 to engage in sexual activity, and attempting to meet a girl under the age of 16 following grooming.

He also pleaded guilty at the start of the trial to an offence of improperly exercising his police powers and privileges in order to receive the ‘benefit of sexual gratification’.

The judge ordered the jury to find him not guilty of arranging/facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

Adjourning the case for sentencing, Judge Jane Miller QC told Olwage: ‘In view of the jury’s verdicts you fall to be sentenced and you will be remanded in custody until April 27 when sentence will take place.’

Speaking about the Olwage guilty verdict, a spokeswoman from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said: ‘Olwage, with all his professional knowledge of the terrible effects of child sexual abuse, shamefully groomed what he believed to be a 13 year old girl on an online chat forum, before moving to WhatsApp to invite ‘her’ to meet him for his own gratification.

‘Grooming is taking place on an industrial scale with online child sex offences at record levels. It is critical the new Online Safety Bill responds to the sheer scale of abuse risks children face on social media and strengthens the child protection system for generations to come.’