Besotted officer is jailed

A custody officer from West Midlands Police was behind bars today after becoming besotted with a prolific car thief almost half her age while taking his fingerprints.

Civilian Tracey Voyce had a fling with Ross Larvin and handed him details of the undercover police surveillance operation on him and his associates, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

He refused to give the infatuated 42-year-old a photograph of himself and so she logged onto a police station computer more than 100 times to admire the official mugshot of the suspect, who is in his 20s.

The mother-of-three "accidentally" printed off information about the undercover watch being kept on him while copying the intranet picture.

Larvin is said to have grabbed the bundle which he later used to taunt police officers involved in the supposedly top secret investigation. An inquiry followed which ended with the arrest of Voyce.

Prosecutor John Edwards said: "She never physically saw him again after he had taken the papers and realised that his interest in her was not as sincere as hers in him."

Antonie Muller, defending, said: "All she wanted was the image of this man. He refused to provide it so she accessed the same page on his police file over 100 times because she just wanted to look at him.

The three-month fling started after Larvin was arrested in September 2006 and taken to Solihull Police Station where Voyce fingerprinted him and took the official picture that caused her downfall. The pair also exchanged explicit texts.

Voyce, of The Parade, Kingshurst, Solihull, has since resigned from the job.

She wept as she was jailed for four months yesterday by Judge John Warner, who told her: "You were infatuated and taken advantage of but you chose to swim in very dangerous waters."