A former Greater Manchester Police officer has been banned from the force after he was convicted for possessing an indecent video of children.

The former officer, Lee Ashcroft, pleaded guilty on October 24, 2022, to making an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child.

Ashcroft worked as an officer in GMP's special operations and was forced to resign from the force on October 21 last year.

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The 40-year-old was then sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, at Liverpool Crown Court on December 19, 2022.

Ashcroft was also given a 30-day rehabilitation order, a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and signed the sex offenders register for 10 years.

At an accelerated misconduct hearing held yesterday (June 27), the force found Ashcroft's behaviour amounted to gross misconduct.

Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who chaired the hearing, said Ashcroft's actions breached the standards of professional behaviour expected of a police officer and that he would have been dismissed had he still been serving.

He further said Ashcroft's culpability was "high" due to his "deliberate actions carried out in the full knowledge that his conduct was blatantly unlawful and morally reprehensible". 

He continued: “Ashcroft’s conduct and conviction inevitably brings the organisation into disrepute and undoubtedly damages the confidence the public might otherwise wish to place in their police officers.

“That Ashcroft appears to have derived some perverse sexual pleasure from the exploitation and suffering inflicted on a child is despicable.

“His conduct cannot be further removed of that required of a police officer. He now stands rightly convicted as a sex offender, his career lies in rumination, he has completely forfeited the trust of the public whom he was sworn to serve."

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