A Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officer arranged to a meet a 13-year-old girl for sex when he was “on duty working from home”, a court has heard.

Francois Olwage, a detective constable who was serving with the Met’s specialist operations unit, is accused of “grooming” what he believed to be a teenage girl he had met on the Lycos online chat forum.

But Winchester Crown Court has heard that the 52-year-old defendant was actually chatting with an undercover police officer pretending to be the girl using the username of Smile Bear before moving to WhatsApp using the name of Caitlin.

The trial has heard that after two weeks of explicit sexual conversations in October 2021, Olwage, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, arranged to meet the “girl” who had told him that she lived in Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Peter Shaw, prosecuting, told the jury that at the start of the trial, Olwage pleaded guilty to an offence of improperly exercising his police powers and privileges in order to receive the “benefit of sexual gratification”.

He also told the jury that Olwage had been listed as “on duty working from home” on October 28 2022, the date he travelled by train to Basingstoke with the aim of meeting the ‘girl’.

The court has heard that Olwage was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Basingstoke by two undercover officers as he was about to buy a McFlurry ice cream to take to his meeting with ‘Caitlin’.

When searched, the officers found in his bag two condoms, a bottle of lubricant and a packet of Tadalafil erectile disfunction tablets.

There was also a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates which Mr Shaw suggested was a present for the ‘girl’.

Mr Shaw said that when interviewed, Olwage provided a statement saying that “he never believed that Smile Bear was a 13-year-old girl” and that he thought it was an adult “playing out a fantasy”.

He also denied any sexual interest in children.

Olwage denies engaging in sexual communication with a child and 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 sexual grooming.

The jury was ordered by Judge Jane Miller QC to find Olwage not guilty of another charge of arranging/facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

The trial continues.

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