A Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officer has been found guilty of three child sex offences, after he arranged to a meet a 13-year-old girl for sex when he was “on duty working from home”.
Francois Olwage, a detective constable who was serving with the Met’s specialist operations unit, was convicted of three child sex offences.
Winchester Crown Court heard Olwage, 52, was exchanging messages on Lycos online chat forum with an undercover police officer pretending to be the girl while using the username of Smile Bear and the name Caitlin on Whatsapp.
The defendant, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire organised to meet the “girl” after two weeks of explicit sexual conversations in October 2021, the court heard.
Prosecutor Peter Shaw told the jury that Olwage had been listed as “on duty working from home” on October 28 in 2022, the same date he travelled by train to Basingstoke with the hopes of meeting the “child”.
Two undercover officeers arrested Olwage at a McDonald’s restaurant in Basingstoke where he was about to buy a McFlurry ahead of his meeting.
They found Olwage had two condoms, a bottle of lubricant and a packet of Tadalafil erectile disfunction tablets in his bag.
There was also a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates which the prosecutor suggested could have been a present for the “child”.
Olwage told the court he “never believed” Smile Bear was a 13-year-old girl and he said 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/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 27th April when sentence will take place.”
– Input from Evening Standard was used in this article.
