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‘Corrupt constable attempted to blackmail sex offenders’
‘Policeman demanded up to £89,000 as price of his silence,’ jury is told
A CROOKED West End policeman tried to get hundreds of thousands of pounds by blackmailing sex offenders and a fraudster, jurors at the Old Bailey heard.
Amerdeep Johal allegedly sent “private and confidential” letters to the 12 people he targeted with contained “menacing” threats.
David Markham, prosecuting, said Constable Johal, 29, asked for sums of between £29,000 and £89,000 as his price for silence.
He was able to access secret Metropolitan Police information about their activities by using his password to the computer system while working at West End Central police station in Westminster, said Mr Markham.
“This was gross abuse of public office by a corrupt police officer for financial gain.
“This defendant used and abused the system in order to identify registered sex offenders,” added the prosecutor.
Johal told his victims that their activities would be made public to their neighbours, families, employers or their community if they did not pay up, he said. But he used his own mobile phone number for contact; most of them were his own neighbours in Redbridge, where he lived with his family, the jury heard.
Johal made 1,258 computer “hits” on names in Redbridge.
When arrested, he allegedly confessed but claimed that he had been forced to do it by a criminal mastermind who had threatened his life and the lives of his loved ones.
Johal denies 12 charges of blackmail between July 1 and 26 last year, and another of misconduct in public office.
Mr Markham said Johal had intimate details of criminals, including their addresses and the types of cars they used.
In his letters he offered a “helping hand” and said he could “sort out” their problems for cash. “All I asked is £31,000 for my understanding,” he is said to have written to one sex offender.
After a wealthy crook – known as Mr K – who had international links with the US and Iran and drove a Mercedes and a BMW was caught with £40,000 in cash from suspected money laundering, he received a letter from Johal, it is alleged.
In it the constable, attached to a specialist unit known as Integrated Borough Operations covering every London borough, said that as “a gesture of goodwill.” he would accept £89,000 for keeping quiet.
He suggested the money could be handed over “at a private members club in St John’s Wood.”
The trial continues. |
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