BRITAIN: Soham policeman Brian Stevens was yesterday cleared of molesting young girls and distributing child porn after evidence from the key prosecution expert was exposed as "wholly wrong".
Det Const Stevens - who was the police liaison officer to the family of murder victim Jessica Chapman - told of his "tremendous relief" as he was cleared of indecently assaulting teenage girls and possessing and distributing indecent photographs of children.
He offered no explanation for the images which were found on his laptop computer.
Lawyers for the 42-year-old said it would be "inappropriate" for him to comment as he is still a serving policeman. He is currently suspended.
Cambridgeshire police said its professional standards department was "reviewing internal disciplinary matters" under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority.
The policeman would stay suspended from duty "until all matters have been resolved", the force said.
Father-of-two Mr Stevens was appointed as family liaison officer to Jessica's parents Leslie and Sharon and their daughters Rebecca and Alison, then aged 16 and 14, within hours of the 10-year-old and her best friend Holly Wells going missing on August 4th last year.
He was at the parents' side at a series of emotional news conferences and helped to tell them their daughter's body had been found.
The family grew so close to the detective - a former soldier who served in the Special Investigations Branch of the Ministry of Defence Police - that they even asked him to read a poem at the memorial service for the two girls at Ely Cathedral.
Today Mr Stevens, of March, Cambridgshire, smiled slightly as he took his place in the dock at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court to hear not guilty verdicts formally entered on all the charges.
He was accused of five charges of possessing indecent photographs of children, three charges of distributing indecent photographs of children and three charges of indecently assaulting girls under the age of 16. The indecent assault charges referred to two teenage girls who cannot be named for legal reasons.