Ian Naude: Cheshire PC jailed for raping 13-year-old girl

A police officer who only joined the force "to gain the keys to a sweetshop" has been jailed for raping a girl.

Cheshire Constabulary PC Ian Naude, 30, met the 13-year-old after being called to her house over a domestic incident.

He contacted her over social media and eventually raped her in his car, while filming it on his mobile phone.

The "committed paedophile" was found guilty at Liverpool Crown Court of raping the teenager and jailed for 25 years.

Naude, of Market Drayton in Shropshire, was also convicted of four charges of attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence and one charge of arranging a child sex offence, relating to five complainants aged between 12 and 15.

The father-of-one, originally from South Africa, previously admitted 31 offences including charges related to grooming underage girls via a fake Facebook and Snapchat profile.

Sentencing him, Judge Clement Goldstone QC said his rape victim had been just three weeks past her 13th birthday.

"In order to impose your will on a young girl and to commit offences of rape and sexual assault against her, you used and abused your position as a Cheshire Police officer, thereby enabling you to satisfy your lust and perversion," he added.

He said Naude was "out of control" with an "insatiable appetite" for young girls and described a selfie he took after raping his victim as showing his "smug self satisfaction and total lack of shame".

During his two-week trial, Naude denied rape and sexual assault as he claimed the sex with the girl was consensual and that she "seemed to be enjoying it".

Prosecutor Owen Edwards described Naude as a "committed paedophile" and said he joined the police "with the intention of exploiting the access he would gain to vulnerable young girls".

"In essence, he was hoping to gain the keys to a sweet shop," he added.

Naude met the girl after he was called to her house over an incident in October last year, the court heard.

After looking her up on Facebook and exchanging sexual messages and photos, he returned to her home three days later to pick her up while her mother was out.

He then drove her to a country lane where he attacked her.

In a statement read in court, the girl's mother said the victim would no longer leave the house without close family and friends and that she will no longer walk past the local police station and hides when a police car goes past.

Other parents said their daughters had gone on to self-harm after being groomed online by Naude, who would blackmail and threaten his victims, persuade them to send pictures of themselves undressed, tell them to call him "daddy" and send them videos of himself masturbating.

The 31 offences that Naude pleaded guilty to included inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, misconduct in a public office and possessing 1,443 indecent images of children, including pictures of girls aged as young as 18 months.

The court heard he would gain the trust of the young girls by posing on social media as a 15-year-old boy called Jake Green.

It has since emerged that Naude, who previously served in Afghanistan as a machine gunner with the Royal Irish Regiment, was already being investigated for sex offences when he became a student officer in April last year.

Cheshire Constabulary said his appointment was delayed from January 2017 to April that year because he was alleged to have raped a woman in Staffordshire.

No further action was taken in the case and Naude was allowed to join - but reports of child grooming in Staffordshire and West Mercia which named him as a suspect in January and February 2017 were not picked up by the Cheshire force until after his arrest in November that year.

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitterand sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.