A former police officer was sentenced in the Royal Court yesterday for “a flagrant breach” of the criminal justice process after she contacted a teenage girl thousands of times whilst under investigation for grooming.
Elle Rebecca Keens walked free from the Royal Court on Monday after previously admitting one count of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The court heard the 30-year-old had already served the equivalent of almost a year in prison.
Keens was initially charged with sexual touching and grooming the teenager for her own gratification.
The sexual touching charge was dropped, and Keens was found not guilty of grooming following a Jurat trial in June.
But while out on bail – and still under investigation – she contacted the teenager thousands of times.
In many of the messages and calls, Keens urged the teenage girl to withdraw her statement.
Crown Advocate Paul Lee, prosecuting, said the ex-police officer sent 6,675 messages to the girl and phoned her 82 times.
“The contact between them had been relentless,” he said.
Referring to Keens’s previous career as a police officer, he said: “She knew better than most that a police investigation must be allowed to take its proper course.
“It matters not whether she felt she was innocent. Pressure on witnesses or those who make a complaint is very serious.”
Advocate Nicholas Mière, defending, pointed out that Keens had no previous convictions, had pleaded guilty when she appeared in the Magistrate’s Court to the charge, and was considered at low risk of reconviction.
“She is unlikely to trouble the Court ever again,” he said.
He added: “This arose in a most stressful situation. It’s something she did out of desperation.”
She knew better than most that a police investigation must be allowed to take its proper course
Crown Advocate Paul Lee
Advocate Mière said Keens had already spent 240 days on remand – the equivalent of a jail sentence of almost 12 months with the discount for a guilty plea – so argued: “She has already been punished more than adequately.”
Commissioner Alan Binnington, presiding, said that even though Keens was found not guilty of the allegations against of grooming , Keens knew as a former police officer that contacting the girl represented an attempt to pervert the course of justice.
He said: “It strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system.
“It is in the public interest that victims and witnesses receive the full protection of the courts”, adding that her actions amounted to “a flagrant breach”.
However he also said the Jurats accepted that she had already served the equivalent of a year in custody so could now be released.
Jurats Kim Averty and David Le Heuzé were sitting.