Police officer who arranged to have sex with a 15-year-old missing girl he was supposed to be helping to find is jailed for four years

A police constable who arranged to have sex with a 15-year-old runaway while investigating her disappearance has been jailed for four years.

Leigh Brightman, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, was assigned to the vulnerable girl's case in August 2014, a period when the victim said she was going through 'very worst time' of her life.

The 37-year-old called and texted the girl to discuss sex before arranging for her to travel to his house by taxi.

The Old Bailey today heard it was not the prosecution's case that the pair had sex, even though they met at his property, and he did not tell the victim he was a police officer.

Kevin Barry, prosecuting, said: 'He knew perfectly well her vulnerabilities, her age at the time, and must have known what a very serious breach of his responsibilities and duties as a police officer that represented.'

The court heard Brightman was aware the teenager may have been working as a prostitute.

He claimed to have been handed an escort card with a phone number, and had no idea he was contacting the missing girl.

The victim, who sat in court with her mother and cannot be named for legal reasons, shook her head at the defendant's explanation.

In a statement read to the court, she said she had been enduring the 'very worst time' of her life when she met Brightman and the incident drove her to self harm.

She said: 'I've suffered psychologically, I've had trouble sleeping, and I've had horrendous flashbacks.'

'I felt dirty, ashamed, but partly stupid ... I had no idea who he was because he had lied. I don't think I'll ever go back to my old self, and I will always have trouble trusting people.'

Brightman pleaded guilty to three counts of misconduct in a public office on the day of his trial, and also admitted two counts of downloading indecent images of a child between 2011 and 2014.

The court heard he also had sex with two other women, who cannot be named, he met through his police work - one who was in her 20s and another in her 40s.

Brightman hid his face as he entered the Old Bailey

He will serve at least two years before he can get parole

The older woman said Brightman was 'flirtatious' from their first meeting in 2012, when he was investigating her allegations of harassment against a former partner. Their sexual encounters began a week later.

When the woman grew concerned that her complaint was not being dealt with, Brightman begged her not to complain as he was preparing for his wedding at the time, the court heard.

The third woman met Brightman as a troubled, drug-addicted teenager and the two were later in contact again when she relapsed into heroin use when she was 20. The pair began to have consensual sex, often while he was in uniform and with his police radio.

Kevin McCartney, defending, said Brightman's guilty pleas represented an acknowledgement that he had failed in his responsibilities as a police officer and as a person.

He said: 'There can be no doubt that if he could rewrite or undo what he has done, he would.'

Judge Mark Lucraft QC sentenced Brightman to four years' imprisonment.

Speaking of his contact with the youngest victim, he said: 'It's clear that when you contacted her, you knew perfectly well who she was, her age and her vulnerabilities.'