Policeman used police database to tip-off paedophile friend

Last week Nutton, 38, of Kingfisher Close, Newport, admitted accessing the Police Criminal Intelligence System and the National Computer to check whether Island church minister Vaughan Evans was being investigated.

The court was told that Nutton, who previously abused a boy himself, had given Evans the all-clear to continue with his paedophile activities.

Evans, 52, a minister in the Spiritual Humanist Church, was jailed for five years last November for making indecent photos of a ten-year-old boy. He then distributed these on the internet and also indecently assaulted the youngster at his home in Freshwater.

The court was told that Nutton, a police officer for six years but who resigned after charges were brought, ran a computer check on Evans after a member of the public made an allegation of abuse.

Officers visited Evans, who admitted boys came to stay with him at his house in Freshwater and he agreed to stop inviting them.

But when Nutton told him he was not being investigated he continued to ask youngsters over and it was during one of these visits the ten-year-old was photographed.