PC groomed girl, 15

Mar 7 2012 by Gary Stewart, Heswall News

A POLICE officer was found guilty of grooming a vulnerable 15-year-old girl.

PC Simon Ferns, 43, a community ward manager for Clatterbridge, had denied the allegation.

Liverpool Crown Court heard Ferns met the girl, then aged 13, when he took over patrolling the patch where she lived.

He was frequently called to her house because of anti-social behaviour from her family and gave her his personal mobile number.

The court was told she had been in trouble with local girls after accusations of stealing their boyfriends.

Ferns told the court the girl got drunk on vodka and slept around.

He claimed he was trying to “keep her on the straight and narrow” by saying he could be her boyfriend. Neil Fryman, prosecuting, accused Ferns of being “infatuated” with the teenager and mocked his claims to be helping her.

He said: “You were like a fireman going and spraying lighter fuel on the fire.

“You were infatuated with her to such an extent that you would do anything to keep what you had going.”

Ferns consistently denied finding the girl attractive or touching her but did admit telling her he loved her and lying on his super kingsize bed with her watching Disney DVDs.

He also gave her lifts in his police van and told her teachers he was her dad so she could get out of lessons.

The court was told he called her ‘Hannah Montana’ after the childrens’ TV show and lied to his lodger, telling him she was 17.

His barrister, Bernadette Baxter, said: “The defendant is under no illusion about the type of sentence which will follow.”

Judge Robert Warnock agreed to a pre-sentence report to compiled on Ferns, of Hurst Bank, Birkenhead.