From BBC NEWS

A Metropolitan Police sergeant has been jailed for eight months for sexually assaulting a sleeping colleague after their work Christmas party.

A fellow officer saw David Stevens, 37, from Highgate, north London, assaulting the male Pc in a hotel room in Elstree, Hertfordshire, in December.

“You saw his drunken figure and you decided to take advantage of him,” Judge Martin Griffith told Stevens.

Stevens was convicted last month at St Albans Crown Court.

The judge ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

Judge Martin Griffith told Stevens: “There is only one sentence I can pass and that sentence is one of immediate custody.

“The courts have a duty to protect vulnerable people especially in this day and age when people drink themselves into such a state they cannot look after themselves.”

Earlier his barrister Susannah Stevens said: “As a police officer, add to that a police sergeant, add to that the fact that he is gay, add to that he is to be sentenced for a sex offense, he will be regarded in prison as the lowest of the low.”

After a dinner, disco and late-night drinking the victim, who had decided to stay the night, passed out in his room.

‘Looking flustered’

Another officer decided to go and mock him for being unable to hold his drink but when he went into the room he found Stevens lying on top of the victim.

Stevens left looking “flustered”, the court heard.

Once he had been woken, the victim, who has a long-term girlfriend, said that he noticed some of his clothes had been removed.

Explaining how he felt after learning that he had been attacked, he said: “I remember falling off the bed on to my knees and punching and hitting the wall.”

Giving evidence Stevens had said: “Going into that room….has ruined my career and humiliated me in front of my family and friends.”

When he was arrested the officer said he had to inform his father that he was gay – something he had not previously known.