Prison for UK Cop who Blackmailed Sex Offender to Feed Gambling

Posted on: November 3, 2025, 03:20h. 

Last updated on: November 3, 2025, 03:20h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More
Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.
  • Former officer posed as pedophile hunter demanding hush money.
  • Used fake email to extort man she once arrested.
  • Court sentenced her to 40 months for blackmail, deceit.

A now-ex UK police officer who tried to blackmail a sex offender for cash to pay gambling debts has been sentenced to more than three years in prison.

Marie Thompson, police corruption, blackmail case, South Yorkshire Police, UK crime
Former PC Marie Thompson, above, claimed to be a “pedophile hunter” to extort a sex offender whom she had earlier arrested for possession of child porn. (Image: South Yorkshire Police)

Marie Thompson – until her resignation last year an officer with South Yorkshire Police – posed as a pedophile hunter to demand cash from a man she had earlier arrested for possession of child porn, according to court documents.

Using a fake email address, she demanded £3.5K (US$4.6K) from the man, who cannot be named because of reporting restrictions under UK law.

Thompson pleaded guilty to blackmail and perverting the course of justice in August at Leeds Crown Court. On Thursday, October 30, she was sentenced to 40 months in prison.

Gambling Disorder

Earlier, the court heard that Thompson suffers from a gambling disorder and was in significant debt at the time that she committed the offense.

She arrested the man in October 2022 on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children and led the subsequent inquiry. The suspect was interviewed and later released under investigation.

On January 17, 2023, he received an email titled “Pedophile Hunters” from a ProtonMail address. The sender said they had been passed information concerning his arrest and demanded payment to “ensure that information remains between you and us.”

“As an organization which works to protect children from people such as yourself, we therefore ask you to make a donation to us,” it added.

Later that day, the man’s partner received a text urging him to respond to the original email before the end of the day. Instead of sending the payment, the couple reported the incident to Thompson.

She said she would investigate but instead wrote up a crime report which falsely stated the man did not wish to pursue criminal charges against the anonymous blackmailer. She also falsified the number used to text the man’s partner to hide that it was her own personal cellphone number.

Six weeks later, Thompson contacted the man claiming the sender of the email and text message could not be traced.

Charade Exposed

Thompson was suspended from South Yorkshire Police for matters unrelated to the case in March 2023, and her caseload was passed to another officer who began digging into the blackmail plot.

The new officer  discovered that his predecessor had not properly investigated the case, and he uncovered the discrepancy between the numbers, finding that the original number had been Thompson’s own.

“The fact that blackmail is a serious crime, no matter who the victim is or what they have done, should have been obvious to anyone, especially a police officer,” said Malcolm McHaffie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, in a statement.

“Her conduct amounted to a serious abuse of the trust which we rightly have in anyone in public office to perform their duties,” he added.