Northumbria police officer convicted of sex attacks

24/11/2010

A Northumbria police officer is facing a lengthy jail term after being convicted of carrying out a string of sex attacks.

PC Stephen Mitchell, 42, has been found guilty of two counts of rape, three of indecent assault and six of gross misconduct in a public office.

At Newcastle Crown Court, he was cleared of a further three counts of rape, three indecent assaults and nine misconduct charges. He will be sentenced in January.

Kingsley Hyland, Head of the CPS North East Complex Casework Unit, said: "Stephen Mitchell was a sexual predator who abused his position as a police officer to target vulnerable women for his own sexual gratification.

"The sentence today is a clear indication of the gravity with which such gross breaches of trust are viewed. I would like to pay tribute to Mitchell's victims whose courage in coming forward to give evidence and to re-live experiences which they must have strived hard to put behind them, this case could not have been brought."