Police officer blames 'team deviant' for helicopter sex video

A police officer who was in a force helicopter while a couple were filmed having sex has denied knowing it was happening and blamed a colleague known as the "team deviant".

Matthew Lucas, 43, admitted being in the front passenger seat of the South Yorkshire Police aircraft but said he did not see the pair and had no idea they were being filmed.

Jurors at Sheffield Crown Court were shown an 11-minute video of the couple shot from the helicopter, but Lucas told them he could only recall seeing a naked woman and a man in a Manchester United shirt for a "matter of seconds".

Asked by his barrister if he saw "any of the actual sex", Lucas replied: "I did not".

The defendant said his colleague, Adrian Pogmore, who was in the back of the aircraft and operating the camera, must have filmed them while the rest of the crew were searching nearby waste ground for nuisance motorbikes.

He added that he could not exactly remember what he said when he saw the couple, but agreed it was something like "Oh my God, Poggy".

Pogmore, described in court as the "team deviant" and "a swinging and sex-obsessed air observer", has admitted four counts of misconduct in a public office.

Asked why Pogmore was known as the "team deviant", the officer told the court he was known to have been involved in naturist sunbathing and "historically" had been a member of a swingers club called La Chambre, in Sheffield.

Lucas and three other defendants - officer Lee Walls, 47, and pilots Matthew Loosemore, 45, and Malcolm Reeves, 64 - claim Pogmore was solely to blame.

They all deny misusing the South Yorkshire Police helicopter by filming people sunbathing naked and the couple having sex.

Lucas denied helping Pogmore and said he had been on previous flights which had "stumbled across" naked people.

As well as the video of the couple having sex in their garden, the jury was shown footage of a woman sunbathing naked in her garden, another couple sitting naked on sun loungers and two naturists sitting naked outside a caravan on a camp site.

Lucas was in the aircraft for three of the four incidents, which took place between 2007 and 2012.

The trial continues.