Police officer ‘put pressure on woman to drop her rape claim’

Aaron John Cusack, 26, denies carrying out a series of acts intended to pervert the course of public justice. He has already admitted three counts of failing to provide pin codes to a phone, an iPad and a laptop computer.

The court heard that Cusack, who joined the local force in 2016, had just started working with CID when this case arose. He has since lost his job with the police as a result of the proceedings against him.

The prosecution said that he pressured the woman into dropping the complaint to protect his own career.

The rape complaint was made to police in late summer 2021. Cusack and a colleague were sent to speak to the victim in October – neither recorded the interview on body cameras. Back at the police station he accessed her mobile phone, which they had taken as part of the investigation, before the force’s high-tech crime unit had been able to download data from it. This was against general police guidance as it meant data could be altered.

He made no record of doing this, which Crown Advocate Chris Dunford said was ‘dubious’ and ‘highly improper’.

Cusack knew what he was doing with mobiles, he said, and spent 10 minutes looking for data which he knew could be damaging for him.

Advocate Dunford said that the defendant had received a naked photograph from the woman, who he knew as a vulnerable person, in 2019. He declared it to colleagues and was told to block her, but he later admitted that he did not and said he had been in contact on Snapchat and Instagram.

‘He had a creeping realisation that a full download could expose his contact with her,’ Advocate Dunford said.

It was agreed that the woman would be interviewed in the week after he first meeting with officers.

The day before he contacted her and asked to visit her at home, alone. She agreed, and Cusack filmed the interview and stored it at the police station. He told the woman that the previous interview had also been recorded and said he had a few concerns about the complaint.

If the woman was lying, he would have no choice but to have her sent to court and prosecuted, he said. He challenged her over alleged inconsistencies in her story and the consequences on the person she was accusing.

The previous day Cusack had met the woman at the police station with a key worker to have her phone returned.

They met Cusack in an interview room, where the key worker concluded that Cusack, who she described as ‘arrogant’ did not believe the woman’s story. He said that the phone was not ready to be returned.

They returned and Cusack spoke to them at the desk of the station, making references to the complaint and the accused, which the key worker thought was unprofessional.

She spoke to a line manager and went on to make a complaint to police professional standards, which sparked an investigation.

Cusack called the key worker the next day to say that the woman had decided to withdraw her statement. The woman told the key worker the following day. She was annoyed and said she had been put under pressure to do it.

The case continues.