Nuclear constabulary officer exchanged sexual images with girl, 12

A police officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary exchanged sexual images with a 12-year-old girl, a court has heard.

Aiden Love, 34, contacted the girl on social media in March last year and told her he was a 14-year-old boy from Inverness.

Wick Sheriff Court heard that he repeatedly asked her for explicit images despite being told she was 12 or 13.

Love, who was living in Halkirk and working at the Dounreay nuclear site at the time, has been sentenced to a three-year community payback order and placed on the sex offenders register.

The court heard the exchanges began innocently, before Love repeatedly asked for explicit pictures.

She eventually relented and sent him face and body shots.

Love, who resigned from the force, admitted at Wick Sheriff Court last July making an indecent sexual communication and causing the girl to look at a sexual image.

The Civil Nuclear Constabulary held a misconduct hearing last month and the panel found the case "shocking" and said the public would be "rightly appalled".