A former detective who failed to investigate rape and sexual assault cases, and faked records to cover his tracks, has been jailed for 16 months.
Ryan Coleman-Farrow, 30, was sentenced for a string of failures linked to 13 cases, including falsely claiming that a rape victim had dropped charges and falsifying witness statements.
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of misconduct in a public office at Southwark Crown Court last month.
Passing sentence, Judge Alistair McCreath said: "In all 13 cases you failed to take steps that were appropriate and necessary for a full and proper investigation of each case, whether by failing to take statements or to gather exhibits or to pass material on to other agencies for further investigation or analysis.
"All of these people had made complaints of sexual abuse and many of them were particularly vulnerable."
The charges related to rape and sexual assault investigations between January 2007 and September 2010 while he Coleman-Farrow, from St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex, was a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police.
He admitted inputting that the Crown Prosecution Service had advised charges should be dropped in rape cases on the police computer, when no such instruction had been given.
He also failed to get witness statements and did not send exhibits for analysis.
His failings affected the case of a 96-year-old woman allegedly raped in her home by her own son.
The officer did not submit evidence of the attack to the Forensic Science Service and falsely claimed to have obtained witness statements.
The case was closed and in February last year the alleged victim died.
Coleman-Farrow also made mistakes in the case of a 14-year-old boy who studied at a school for children with special needs.
After it was alleged the boy was abused by a classmate, the officer failed to collect paperwork, did not take a statement from a girl who allegedly witnessed the incident and had no record of a statement from the class teacher.
Defence lawyer Richard Atchley said his client's behaviour had been related to a pernicious form of cancer he had suffered during the time of the offences and that he was going through the collapse of his first marriage.
He said: "This was not corruption and not even laziness.
"He was covering up failures that happened six years into a job, before which he had been a very effective officer.
"These failures were due to poor health over part of three years."
His failures came to light when complaints were made by a sex worker called Jaime Perlman.
She claimed she was being stalked by a client in 2009 and was unhappy with the way the officer, who has since been sacked, handled the harassment claims.
Miss Perlman later took her own life in an apparent suicide pact with another sex worker, Riley Lison-Taylor, and no findings were made against Coleman-Farrow.
But it triggered a probe by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which led to the 13 charges being brought.
Deborah Glass, deputy chairwoman of the IPCC, described him as a "rogue officer who deceived his colleagues and concocted evidence to cover his tracks".
