CORRUPT COP JAILED FOR SHADY SEX WORKER CAR CHECK

A COP who quit in disgrace after helping a sex worker track down a client she claimed had conned her was jailed yesterday.

- BY TIM BUGLER

PC Steven Charletta, 60, carried out a number plate check on a BMW the man had driven to meet her — and then, instead of her £500 fee, had handed over an envelope containing only scrap paper.

Falkirk Sheriff Court heard the man — a 29-year-old mechanic who has since died — had told the woman the BMW belonged to a customer and he wanted to have sex in the back of it.

Charletta’s checks revealed, however, that the registered keeper was in fact the man’s female partner of 10 years.

Charletta, based in Cowdenbeath, went to the registered keeper in uniform - while a colleague was waiting in a van thinking he was on a legitimate purpose - and asked who the male driver had been. Then he returned and took his details, citing an insurance claim.

He passed the information to a friend, Chloe Sinclair, 30, whom he had been funding through a university law degree.

Sinclair passed it to her sister, Freya Shaw, 25, who had carried out the sex work. Shaw then contacted the client's partner.