A judge has called for an inquiry into why it took 11 months to charge a Metropolitan police officer with sexual assaults on two members of the public.
Detective constable Clifford Earl was jailed for 12 months on Friday for groping two women in 2011 whom he met in the course of his work.
It emerged at Southwark crown court in south London that there was an 11-month delay between him being arrested by the directorate of professional standards at the Met police on suspicion of sexually assaulting two women and being charged.
He was arrested and interviewed in February 2012, but not charged until January this year.
The court heard the original investigating officer was removed from the inquiry before Earl was eventually charged.
She has also been removed from the unit she worked for at the time, the court heard.
As he sentenced Earl, 57, who targeted two vulnerable women in their homes in July and September 2011, Judge Michael Gledhill QC said: "An inquiry as to what happened to cause this delay should be conducted by the appropriate police authority."
Earl molested a vulnerable and distressed innocent woman after police had arrested her partner in a dawn raid. The officer remained behind alone to comfort her and take a statement.
The married father-of-two also kissed and begged another woman for sex in her own kitchen, while touching himself, after she went to police for help to solve the violent theft of her 11-year-old son's bike.
Earl's wife of 33 years was suffering with bowel cancer and chronic leukaemia at the time of the offences, the court heard.
Sentencing Earl, Gledhill said the sentence was an "act of mercy" because of his wife's ongoing illness and berated him for his behaviour.
"You were a serving police officer at the time," he said.
"The public are entitled to expect their police officers to protect the foundations of our civilised society.
"You have considerably undermined public confidence in the police service as a result of your behaviour."
Earl of Sittingbourne, Kent, admitted two charges of sexual assault at a court hearing in May.
He will serve six months in jail before being released on licence.
The court heard that both the offences were committed in 2011 but Earl, who worked out of Walworth police station in south London, was only charged in January this year because of delays blamed on the original investigating officer, who was removed from the case before he was charged.
Earl was dismissed last week from his job – which he had held for 33 years. His wife Fiona was in the public gallery as he was jailed.
The court heard that the first victim came into contact with Earl after she went to Peckham police station to report the theft of her son's bike in early July 2011.
He gave her and her son a lift home after his bike was found, and gave her his private email address and later a private mobile phone number.
He claimed he would help her get rehoused in a different area, but begged her to keep it quiet.
Later that month he made a visit to her home while she was alone. While she made him a drink in the kitchen, he began brushing himself up against her, telling her she was "beautiful and sexy" before kissing her.
Catherine Farrelly, prosecuting, said: "She was very confused by the defendant's behaviour but he offered her reassurance and told her again he was in the process of helping her with the housing authority, though he repeated once again that she should not tell anyone he was helping her in that regard.
"While this was happening she could see the defendant was playing with himself and it was clear he had an erection.
"He also told her he wanted to have sex with her."
The court was told he called and texted her twice more after the assault.
She eventually summoned up the courage to tell a friend and then make a complaint.
The second victim feared that Earl would rape her when he targeted her after a raid at her home in Bromley, south east London, the following September, the court heard.
After officers arrested her partner and left, he remained behind with her to take a statement.
But he started acting strangely, watching her in the kitchen as she made a cup of tea and asking about her sex life with her partner.
He then made several attempts to hug her, and she had to ward him off.
She tried to get him to leave but he said he wanted "a big cuddle". He then tried to cuddle her, touching one of her breasts in the process.
She eventually got him to leave, having given him a statement.
She did not report the matter until several months later, when she told a police officer she trusted.
"As a result of this incident she finds it extremely difficult to trust men," Farrelly said.
Earl joined the Metropolitan Police as a Special Constable in 1980, becoming a full officer in 1994.
